Child of the Forest
by The Part-Timer
Summary: What if Naruto had been "disappeared" before he could be given his own apartment in Konoha? Years later, the Forest of Death is rumoured to be haunted by a pair of bright, red eyes….
1. Prologue

Wow. It's been so many years since I've written any story at all. Definitely feeling rusty, so hopefully writing this story will help the words flow out better after a while.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

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**Prologue**

Once upon a time, in an alternate universe, Uzumaki Naruto would have moved into his very own apartment at the tender age of six, after the Hokage despaired of finding an orphanage that would care for the boy without "incidents" that required either medical or physical intervention.

In that alternate universe, Naruto would've been accompanied by the Hokage from the hospital straight to his new apartment, protecting Naruto from further sabotage.

In this universe, however, his attacker was a little bit too clever, a little bit too fast, for all that he had ANBU guards, and thus Naruto found himself smacked around, whisked off in a shunshin, and dumped somewhere dark, damp and earthy, where he promptly fainted with no one wiser until the next morning, when all hell broke loose in the Hokage Tower.

Thus the Child of the Forest was born.

* * *

Something was tickling his nose.

Blearily, Naruto tried to move - and cried out when his entire body twanged in pain. Gasping, he flipped onto his back carefully and opened his eyes. He wasn't in the orphanage. Damp grass and earth poked his exposed neck and palms, and he could feel something gnarly under his head. He could make out bits of soft dappled moonlight shining through the canopy of trees high above him, though just watching it made him dizzy. He blinked and looked around.

Everywhere looked the same to him, endless expanses of grey and black, with trees and shrubs and vines stretching as far as he could see, which wasn't very far at all. Naruto stifled a sob and rubbed furiously at his eyes. He'd been picked on again! It wasn't fair! He didn't know why the villagers hated him, but it sucked and he didn't like it at all. Just wait till he became Hokage!

With a practicality that defied his age, the little boy forced himself to stop feeling miserable and sat up. The ache in his limbs was already fading, giving him another reason to put the latest incident behind him. He didn't know where he was, but he should find his way home. Hokage-jiji often warned him against sneaking out at night. Even if he didn't know how he got here, he'd better go home before he got into soooo much trouble.

First he had to figure out where "here" was. Naruto sniffed the air as he looked around; to his disappointment, he couldn't smell anything familiar, so he got up to wander around. By now, his eyes had adjusted to the gloom, though he still couldn't figure out his location. He was reasonably certain that he hadn't been in this part of the village before.

Well, nothing for it. He picked a random direction, hoping to find a landmark, the forest rustling and crunching and snapping wherever he went, breaking the silent night. If Naruto had been even a few years older, or if he'd sat through the wilderness survival class at the Academy, he might have known that so making much noise was a bad idea, but at six years old he had nary a clue. So he walked and walked and walked, stumbling over roots and rocks.

It was only when he finally stopped walking, tired and still nowhere familiar, that fear crept up his spine. Naruto shivered and pulled his jacket sleeves down to cover his hands, leaving only his head exposed to the chilly air, trying his best to not cry. He was a big boy now, Hokage-jiji said so, which was why Hokage-jiji said he could move into his Very Own House soon. Big boys don't cry. So Naruto _shouldn't cry_-

His foot caught on a tree root, sending him tumbling face-first into the soil. He lay there for a while, stunned. Then the crappiness of the day caught up to him, strangling him, squeezing his tears out…and despite his best efforts, Naruto cried anyway.

It wasn't a loud wail. Unlike most children his age, Naruto had learned the hard way that no one would respond when he cried, except to laugh or scream at him, so his tears streamed silently, broken by soft hiccups that wouldn't have been heard past any walls. Normally that wasn't a problem.

Unfortunately for him, he was out in the forest with wild animals, and many predators roamed the land at night, predators with much, much better hearing than the average human.

He didn't notice a large shadow watching him cry. He didn't notice a thing - until a big pair of jaws snapped down on his head and neck, threatening to tear him apart.

Naruto screamed.

No one heard him.

* * *

Naruto was beyond terrified. His entire head was caught in those jaws, so all he could see and hear was a wet blackness, hot and sticky, and a low, hungry rumbling that came from deep within the maw of the beast. Desperately, he wished for a weapon - kunai, shuriken, a rock, anything! - but he had nothing. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't _think_.

Sharp teeth dug deeper into his flesh. With a growl, the beast tossed Naruto up in the air, chomped down on his body, and bound away after giving Naruto one good shake. The constant jostling tore at his body, making him cry out in pain. He'd been snagged right between two canines when he was tossed, but the pressure of the upper jaw on his body was strong, hammering at him with every step the beast took. His feet flailed uselessly, unable to kick.

Naruto panted in pain and fear. Where was the beast taking him? The forest blurred past him, faster and quieter than he'd ever gone before, even though the beast was just running now, not leaping. Hot, thick saliva spilled from the beast's jaws onto his face, making him cough and spit. Eventually, the beast slowed to a trot, and Naruto could make out thinning vegetation before the beast jumped down to a clearing and dumped him on the ground. Naruto grunted at the impact.

High above him, the beast gave a half-howl, half-purr, snout pointed at the exposed root system of a great tree. For a moment, nothing happened. Naruto only had time to wipe saliva out of his eyes before four shadows emerged from the roots.

They were foxes, Naruto realised when they came closer. He curled into a crouch, ready to run away, when a large paw batted at him, sending him sprawling. He shook his head and looked up.

_Oh_, he thought faintly. They weren't just foxes. They were _giant_ foxes, a mama and her four cubs, the four smaller dog-sized creatures looking just like her in miniature. Naruto scrambled to put some distance between him and them. The vixen just watched as her cubs approached him curiously even as he backed away. Too soon, he tripped over a root and fell on his rump, knocking him out of breath. The cubs, seeing him in a more vulnerable position, advanced faster. One nipped his foot and he backed away in alarm. His hand fisted the soil - no, a rock. Heart racing, he curled his fingers round the rock, picked it up, and threw.

It struck a cub.

With a terrible roar, the mother fox pounced and pinned him under a large paw. Naruto screamed as he scrabbled fruitlessly to escape the claws that threatened to pierce his neck. The vixen was truly angry, her jaws bare inches from his face, growling long and deep, saliva dripping. He gasped for breath, ribs creaking under her tremendous weight, sight blurring, no he couldn't die here nonono_no_-

In desperation, he dug his nails into her paw, pushing upwards, muscles straining, wishing wishing _wishing_ to hurt her, to escape, to stay alive, and slowly, slowly, a red haze seeped out around him as he poured more and more strength into his arms, digging his nails deeper, sharper into her flesh. Just a little bit more, he told himself desperately. A little more, and he'd be free-

A snarl, a final push, and he was out from under her, hands thick with blood. Wheezing, he glared at the vixen, who had ceased her approach and merely crouched warily. Her nose twitched, ears flattening, and she issued a low growl. Naruto snarled back.

Then, against the odds, the vixen retreated. Slowly, at first, then with one large leap that took her out of Naruto's sight. Stunned, Naruto dropped to the ground, greedily gasping for breath as the red haze dissipated. He didn't understand what happened, but somehow, he'd survived, and the vixen was gone.

A series of yips and barks snapped his attention back to his surroundings. Apprehension pooled in his stomach; he'd forgotten about the cubs. The four foxes were within reach now, all curious, all coming nearer. Naruto eyed them in despair. His hands trembled, spent and limp, barely fisting despite his best efforts. One cub dared to come closer than the rest. Its paw snagged his pants, and he kicked it away. But instead of attacking like its mother, the cub took a leap backwards, crouched, and started gekkering, a series of chattering that its siblings quickly picked up. They began nipping at him then darting away, or batting at him then crouching, leaving Naruto baffled. They weren't attacking. In fact, from his experience with dogs in Konoha, they looked like they were…playing?

_What in the world is happening to me_?

* * *

Dawn broke, and with it came the change in ANBU detail for Naruto. Or at least, it would have been a change, except for the distinct absence of a night ANBU guard. ANBU operative Cat quickly scanned the area for her colleague and, in finding no one, dropped in to check on Naruto. Shimmying through the window, she peeked into the dark room. It was silent, as expected, so she crept up to the bed to see the figure beneath the blanket…but no one was there. Blood drained from her face.

She concentrated and stretched her awareness as far as she could. But with his developing chakra coils, unused and dormant, Naruto couldn't be distinguished from any other normal civilian, and there were many civilians here near the orphanage, here in the civilian sector. She cursed under her breath, flared her chakra in alarm and shunshined to the Hokage's Tower.

The Hokage was already in office with his secretary when she barged in.

"Hokage-sama! Hokage-sama, Uzumaki's missing." She blinked when the Hokage's eyes, normally gentle, sharpened at her words.

"What! Since when? Where's Boar?"

"I was supposed to relieve him, but I didn't see him, Hokage-sama."

"Could Naruto have snuck off somewhere?"

"I'm not sure, Hokage-sama, but since it's 0600 hours now, it is unlikely; he's a late sleeper."

The Hokage whirled round and pressed a button on his table. Immediately, a team of shinobi blurred into view, saluting the Hokage.

"Uzumaki Naruto is missing," Sarutobi snapped. "We do not yet know whether he is truly lost or just walking around, but assume he is lost. Find him and bring him to me."

"Yes, Hokage-sama!" The team shunshined away.

Frowning, Sarutobi turned his back to Cat, facing his only window. She stood at attention as the Hokage stared off into the distance.

"We better hope, for everyone's sake, that this is another of Naruto's pranks," he said after a moment. He shook his head. "If Naruto isn't found within the hour, mobilise the Inuzuka. Dismissed."

"Yes, Hokage-sama!" She saluted and left the room, leaving the Hokage alone in his office.

Sarutobi sighed and sipped at his now-cold tea. Not for the first time, he wished his crystal ball worked on all his subjects, not just his ninja, even if it'd be a programmatic nightmare. The crystal ball could only be used to detect the ninja whose chakra he could identify; without it, it was like looking for a needle in a proverbial haystack, the haystack being the roiling mass of low, undeveloped chakra signatures of children and civilians that make up a large percentage of Konoha. He sighed again.

The hour came and went, and Inuzuka were deployed to track the boy down, even as other ninja investigated any and all potential suspects for clues. The Hokage's fury grew as the day dragged on with no whisker-faced boy in sight.

"We need more time, Hokage-sama," Inuzuka Tsume, the current head of the Inuzuka clan, told Sarutobi, rather stiffly. "It rained all night there yesterday, and with no idea where to start, my clansmen have been scouting in the village first. If they haven't found him by tonight, we may have to consider that Uzumaki may not be in the village anymore."

"We cannot allow that to happen, Tsume."

"I understand, Hokage-sama, but we have to be prepared. Hiashi has been persuaded to release a few Hyuuga to assist with the search; they will pair up with my clansmen."

A puff of smoke billowed from Sarutobi's pipe as he exhaled to gather his patience. Boar had been found in the afternoon, concussed, injured, and slurring nonsense, but there was still no news of Naruto. "See that you find him. And the perpetrator, if he was taken."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

Sarutobi massaged his temples once he heard the door click shut behind Tsume. _What a mess_, he thought. _What a mess_.

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Yep, definitely rusty. I'll try better next time. So how was it? Tell me what you think!


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Naruto didn't quite understand what was happening, but it seemed as though the cubs weren't hostile, and in fact just wanted to play. With the vixen gone, the sense that he might become someone's dinner went away, leaving only lingering soreness where the vixen had mauled him. The cubs weren't so bad, he decided, as he passed his hand through their fur. They acted much like the stray dogs back in Konoha.

"Hey, would you happen to know where I am?" he asked them, not really expecting an answer. The nearest cub merely pushed its head into his body in an invitation for more petting. Naruto sighed and acquiesced. He had no idea how long the vixen was gone, but running away while he could felt like a very good idea, if only he knew where to go. That, and the cubs' puppy-dog eyes were super effective - Naruto melted under their quadrupled power.

The bushes behind him rustled. He paid it no mind at first, thinking it was one of the cubs, until a deer was dropped with a wet thump right in front of him and the foxes. It skittered and prepared to run, snorting in fear and favouring a leg. Naruto watched it, uncomprehending, then he whirled around to see the vixen returned, passively watching her cubs as she did with him. Gulping, he sank to a crouch and tried to make himself as small as possible.

The deer clearly had stronger survival instincts than Naruto: it bolted as far as it could from the foxes, and when one cub ambushed it from the side, it swiveled and lowered its antlers, snorting. The cubs took it as an invitation to advance. Naruto frowned. He counted three cubs; where was one more?

His answer came in the form of a death shriek from the deer. As it reared and swung round, he caught sight of the last cub, hanging on for dear life by the skin of its teeth on the deer's neck. Seizing the opportunity, the other cubs pitched in, aiming at the deer's legs and neck. The deer thrashed - kicked - screamed its defiance - but in the end, it died, choked to death by the cubs who hadn't yet the strength to break its neck. A low rumble of satisfaction and the cubs settled down, preparing to eat. Naruto felt a little sick.

A louder warning rumble from above made him look up. The vixen was staring at him, ears flat and teeth bared. His heart raced as he scrambled away, frantically trying to recall how he'd escaped the first time. A large snout bowled him over and pinned him in place as the vixen sniffed, sucking cold gusts of air around him, intensifying his terror. He had to escape - how _did_ he escape? The snout came unbearably close to his face, and he grabbed it, trying to push it away.

"I won't die today, stupid fox, you hear me?" he snarled, fighting for purchase on the wet, black nose. "I am Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage! A fox like you won't kill me!" His fingers suddenly sank easily into the snout and he slashed down, causing the fox to leap back, shaking her head.

Panting for breath, Naruto glared at the vixen, prepared for an attack, but she didn't come. Blood dripped from her snout from four deep slashes, rough and jagged, and Naruto frowned despite himself. His nails weren't that sharp. They…oh.

He stared in fascination at his hands. He still had two hands, ten fingers…but ten new claws, sharp and bloody, glistened back at him in the morning light. The claws retracted as he watched. The more they retracted, the louder the vixen growled, and Naruto watched her warily. Then he was struck by an idea.

What if…what if the claws were the reason she stopped attacking?

He flexed his fingers, trying to make the claws extend. Nothing. The vixen's growling grew louder. _Think, Naruto, think! _Naruto nagged himself, trying to squeeze his memory for the sensation. He'd felt scared, then warm, an almost-hot-but-okay burn that spread from his middle to the rest of his body, like tamed fire. He tried to recall that feeling to the surface, hoping against hope and racing against time.

He imagined hot breath on cold fingers in winter. He imagined the heat of the stove in the orphanage. He imagined, also, the bonfires at the Ohitake fire festival in autumn, how it raged in defiance of the wind that threatened to snuff it, how it swallowed the wind and grew larger, larger, until the last prayer sticks were consumed. Warmth spread again from within his body - and this time, Naruto noticed the red haze that seeped out with it, puzzled. He looked up.

The vixen was no longer growling. Ears still flattened and eyes distrusting, yes, but not about to attack. With a huff, she spared him one last look before joining her cubs for their meal. Naruto exhaled shakily.

Okay, so he'd figured out how to not become instant fox-dinner. Now he just had to make it permanent.

A quiet rumbling broke through his thoughts and he stared at the vixen, which had returned to him and was staring back. He swallowed and tried his best to keep that hot-warm feeling inside burning. The vixen opened her mouth and let something fall. It was a piece of deer meat, he realised, raw and bloody and gathering dirt as the vixen nosed it towards him. He blinked. She nosed it closer to him again then drew back, sitting on her haunches, watching him. He could almost see the instruction in the vixen's foxy eyes: eat. In the background, the cubs were noisily enjoying their meal, their mouths and fur matted in blood. He spared them a quick glance. His stomach grumbled.

He'd subsisted on bad food before. How bad could raw meat be?

* * *

Hatake Kakashi, ANBU operative Hound, codename Inu, stepped out of the hidden ANBU registration room next to Konoha's gates, squinting at the sudden change in brightness. It had been months since he last saw this side of the village gates, from the inside, considering he'd been on a mission. His three ANBU partners stalked behind him, equally appreciative of being home. Kakashi felt his heart lift despite his travel fatigue. With a discreet sign, he dismissed his partners while he continued his leisurely pace to the Hokage Tower straight ahead, nodding greetings as they came.

The streets of Konoha were pretty much the same - not that he'd expected it to change much in peacetime - barring a few new shops here and there. Kakashi let his mind wander. He'd been considering his resignation from ANBU for a while now, perhaps in a year, once he'd earned enough to buy a landed property with a large yard for his ninken. The pain caused by Rin's and Obito's passing had dulled somewhat over the years, but his father's…he hadn't stepped into his family home in decades, and he still didn't intend to. There was an empty compound near the Konoha stadium that would suit him just fine.

He allowed himself to think of the house, mentally filling in the plot of land, along with the fortifications he planned to build into it. He'd need an architect, of course, or…not, really, if he could persuade Yamato to use his Wood Release to do everything for his beloved senpai. His eye curved into a smile. Yes, that would do.

For now, he'd seek out a mission that would let him stay in the village for a while, in case he had any outstanding matters to settle. Perhaps a stint as Naruto's ANBU bodyguard detail, for all that the boy was a menace to shadow. It wasn't too difficult most times, and it would allow him a chance to see his sensei's son, as indirect as it was. Briefly, he entertained the thought of revealing himself upon retirement. He'd cross that bridge when he came to it.

Humming softly, he entered the Hokage Tower, where the chunnin guard saluted him and noted his entry to the building. The Hokage might be surprised that Kakashi bothered to use the door for once. The corners of his mouth twitched.

The Hokage's secretary, a young female chunnin whose name he couldn't remember, gave him an exasperated stare as he crossed the last few steps to the Hokage's office, glaring when he saluted her cheekily. He wasn't even that late this time - Weasel might be a teenager and the youngest member of his team, but that kid had superb people management skills and had managed to herd their team back on time, including him. He only managed to be late by loitering on his way to the tower. It was only half an hour, but he had an image to maintain!

"You're late, Kakashi," the Hokage said, in a resigned tone that carried no reprimand. It was all routine by now. Kakashi grinned under his mask.

"Maa, well, I got lost on the road of life."

To his disappointment, the Hokage just shook his head and changed the topic. "I take it the mission went well?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama. Here's the report." The report exchanged hands and the Hokage skimmed through it. "Hokage-sama, if you may, I would like to request for Naruto's bodyguard mission for the next few days while I get my affairs back in order." Was it his imagination, or did the Hokage's fingers tighten on his report?

Sarutobi continued perusing his report in silence. Kakashi's instincts tingled in warning, although outwardly he only narrowed his eye and said nothing. After a few more seconds, the Hokage sighed.

"I'm afraid that's not possible, Kakashi."

"Oh. Wow. I had no idea that Naruto missions were becoming that popular."

"It's not," the Hokage said heavily. "That's not possible, because Uzumaki Naruto has been missing for almost two months now, and we have no idea where he is."

…_What?_ "Excuse me, Hokage-sama?" If his voice sounded a little strangled, both men ignored it. "I must have misheard you. Almost two _months_?"

"Yes, Kakashi, and don't think I've spared any ninja trying to find him either. You know what he is." And who he is, but that went unsaid considering the handful of people who knew who fathered Uzumaki Kushina's child. The Hokage massaged his temples, looking every inch his true age and so very tired.

"The other villages?"

"I've set Jiraiya and his spies on it, but no news yet."

Dread curdled in Kakashi's gut. Naruto could be anywhere by now. He had never interacted with him, only watched him from a distance, but he was still his sensei's child, the last link he had to his surrogate parental figure and mentor. He'd thought, perhaps, that he could build a relationship with Naruto, sometime, after his hurts have scabbed over a bit more. It looked like he was, as usual, too late. It sent a bitter thrum through his brain.

"Could I go look for him, Hokage-sama?"

"You could," the Hokage allowed, "but it's been so long now, Kakashi, and any scent trails that you could have picked up is long gone."

"I know that, Hokage-sama. I…I'd just like to try. Just in case."

He could feel the Hokage's eyes on him, judging. And blaming him, he'd like to think, but he knew that was just his imagination.

He'd always been his own worst critic.

"Kakashi," the Hokage said, and Kakashi's head snapped up. "You've just come back from a long mission and you're probably tired. Why don't you take some time off?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama," he murmured, noting that the Hokage hadn't explicitly denied his request. The moment he left the Hokage Tower, Kakashi shunshined away, his mind racing to cobble together a plan of action.

At home, he wasted no time biting his finger to summon his ninken. All eight of them poofed into existence, cramping up his living room in surprise.

"What's the matter, Kakashi?" Pakkun whined. "You seldom call all of us when in Konoha."

"Naruto's missing."

Pakkun scrambled to his feet, eyes wide. "The pup?"

His throat constricted. His ninken, it seemed, accepted Naruto as family earlier that he did, for all that Minato-sensei had no connection with Kakashi's dog contract. It stung.

"Yes, the pup," he said. "It's been almost two months, Hokage-sama said, so we might not be able to track him-"

"We will try, Kakashi." Pakkun butted his head against Kakashi's leg and placed a paw on his foot. "There are nine of us here, including you, so we can cover a lot of ground. Right, boys?" A chorus of barks and agreements came from the ninken as they crowded around Kakashi, licking and headbutting him for comfort. Kakashi ruffled their fur gratefully.

"We'll get something of his for you to sniff, then we'll head out to track him," he said once he recovered himself. "I'll drop by the orphanage first. Thanks, guys."

The pug snorted. "It's nothing, Kakashi. Just go."

Kakashi gave Pakkun one last pat before standing up. The rest of the ninken disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving Pakkun, who settled himself on Kakashi's shoulder and nuzzled his neck.

"We'll do our best, Kakashi, you know that, right?" he said.

"I know, Pakkun. I know."

The orphanage, unfortunately, yielded nothing useable. Times were lean, even during peacetime, and nothing was to be wasted: Naruto's scant belongings had been redistributed among his fellow orphans, used and washed enough times that Naruto's scent would have been erased. One part of Kakashi wanted to be mad at the orphanage for giving up on Naruto so soon. He reined in his temper, knowing that the orphanage was just being practical. Probably. He requested to see Naruto's room, but even that had been taken over by a new boy soon after Naruto was declared missing. Kakashi bit back the urge to curse.

He left the orphanage disheartened and frustrated. Where else did the boy go, what else did the boy have? The Academy - he was due to start in the fall. The park - no one played with him, so he'd always played with the equipment there, but the smell of so many other children would have removed his scent long ago. Ichiraku Ramen - a similarly public place, with rotating visitors, and also useless.

With nothing for his dogs to track by scent, his ninken couldn't assist; their strength was in their sense of hearing and smell, not their eyesight, and Pakkun was the only one who'd even seen the boy before, anyway. He had to rely on himself, except that he had no clue where to begin.

Theories and worst-case scenarios flooded his mind. He'd comb through every inch of the village, of course, then its surroundings, then every single mission destination thereafter until he found Naruto again if that was the last thing he did. Kakashi stiffened as he recalled the Hokage's offhand comments about Danzo and Naruto, something about training the jinchuuriki from an early age. He'd shared a look with the Hokage then, knowing, without speaking, that the Hokage was thinking of Root, which Danzo supposedly disbanded but kept running in secret. Sarutobi had always been the type of leader that cut his subjects some slack so long as they did their jobs, but Kakashi had no such restraint.

If Naruto was found with Danzo, he'd burn Root to the ground.


	3. Chapter 2

Hey guys, I'm back with Chapter 2! Sorry for the bluntness of Chapter 1 as I was in a rush to upload it before I went out...anyway, deepest thanks to all those who've reviewed, followed, or favourited this story. Let's try to hit 100 follows with this chapter and keep a girl happy, yeah?

On with the story!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

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**Chapter 2**

Naruto was, in fact, not that far away by shinobi standards, in the nearby forest bordering the village of Konoha. The fox cubs he'd grown up with had all left their mother now. He left the den when they did, though he still sought them out from time to time to say hello like all the others. He even stayed with the vixen when he felt lonely, helping to forage food for her newest litter of cubs. She'd taught him how to scavenge for food, hunt small mammals, forage wild berries, mushrooms, and fruits, and most importantly, how to stay alive. Her older cubs had come along for most of it as part of their learning process, but his newest siblings were still too young, so Naruto took it upon himself to feed them when the vixen was away.

Unbeknownst to him, the giant foxes had more robust digestive systems than humans, allowing them to eat most of the food they found in the forest. He didn't quite have their iron stomachs, but he learned well enough from trial and error, helped along by the superior healing factor from the Kyuubi, though Naruto only knew it as the voice in his head. The whispers had started not long after he figured out how to make his claws permanent. He could hide the red haze that used to seep out now, though whenever he stooped by a stream for a drink, his reflection had deep, whisker-like scars across its cheeks and thin, vertical pupils like his fox siblings, not that he minded that. He rather liked those changes, since it meant he looked more like them. It also made him less appealing to the other giant inhabitants of the forest. He wrinkled his nose, recalling the unfortunate encounters in which the vixen had to save him until he learned how to save himself.

Naruto climbed up a tree to reach the fresh fruit he could smell there. He batted a few of the more fragrant ones to the ground before climbing down, barking a warning at a squirrel that dared to dart off with his spoils. Gathering the fruit, he made his way back to the vixen's den, avoiding the sounds of other predators nearby. He'd managed to befriend a good many of them, but some, such as the wolves and bobcats, remained hostile. Herbivores were easy enough once he'd learned to hide the red haze, which was lucky since they knew really nice feeding spots with good cover and high visibility for someone his size. All in all, he liked his life now, and he could barely remember a time when he stayed in a village anymore. That was a good thing, he decided, since he no longer had to deal with the unfriendly vibes he tended to sense around them. The forest was an honest entity, easy to understand.

Grunting, he dropped down to the vixen's den, where the fox cubs swarmed around him, trying to snuffle the fruit out of his arms. Naruto chuckled and tossed a fruit to each cub. The last one he kept for himself, biting into the sweet flesh with relish. Juices dribbled down his chin and the cubs hurried to lick him dry, amid much laughter from Naruto. The cubs probably thought of him as a surrogate parent more than a brother, even though the reynard stuck around this time and helped the vixen when hunting.

The vixen had told him to be careful today. She'd smelled a number of foreign scents in the forest, an event that always marked the intrusion of a much larger number of scents soon thereafter. It was a catastrophe that seemed to happen every few years and claimed the lives of many forest creatures. All the corpses made for good feeding to her as a scavenger, though she worried for the safety of her cubs. She lost her first mate to those two-legged creatures long ago. Naruto promised himself to protect his forest friends as much as he could, this time. The stupid wolves, too.

Still, he couldn't help but be curious about the two-legged creatures. While he mostly ran on all fours now - it was much easier to keep his balance that way, and to jump from branch to branch, though that was something he learned himself with the vixen watching as his siblings couldn't do the same - he could recall a time when he used to walk on two legs, long ago. He might sneak a peek sometime if he could sense one of them alone.

Several days later, a large number of scents appeared in the forest, just as the vixen predicted. To his consternation, they'd fanned out and entered the forest from multiple points, making it much harder for him to keep track of them. To make things worse, they seemed to travel in their own packs of two or three. Naruto grimaced and picked up speed. He'd just have to be faster than the two-legs.

Nothing much happened on the first sunset. The second sunset saw more and more scents coming closer, with a few clashes between them. There was an incident with the giant flying leeches, but they could take care of themselves, so Naruto wasn't too worried.

By the third sunset, he realised that the scents were converging at the centre, where a structure towered over a dirt road that bisected the forest. That wasn't good. Most of the major forest inhabitants stayed in the somewhere in the middle of each half, the furthest they could be from areas frequented by the two-legs. The two-legs were too much trouble and often too dangerous to hunt, so many predators left them alone, preferring their natural prey. Naruto groaned. The logistics would kill him.

Sure enough, he could smell a team coming closer to the territory of the bears, so he took off in that direction, hoping to lure the bears away. He didn't have time to coax them with their favourite honey, but they were familiar enough with him that hitching a ride on their back and guiding them that way might just work. When he got near enough to hear the voices of the two-legs, he scampered up a tree and watched them from between the leaves, ready to jump.

They were arguing, based on their tone of voice. It didn't concern him as long as he could get the bears out of the way first. He travelled across the trees, trusting his nose to find the bears. He found them just beyond the clearing where the two-legs were, already aware of the intrusion into their territory and unhappy about it. He chittered at them and dropped onto the back of the largest bear. It grunted and shook its whole body, but Naruto held firm and continued chittering. Soon, it subsided into a soft grumbling and allowed itself to be led away from the site, its two cubs ambling behind. He only chanced a look back at the clearing once he judged themselves far enough away. Satisfied, he leaped off the back of the bear and continued on his way.

He was too late to see the eyes of the two-legs staring at him.

* * *

The fourth sunrise needed a lot more interventions from him as more two-legs approached the heart of the forest, but this tapered off by the fifth sunset as most of the two-legs left the limits of his perception. Naruto breathed a sigh of relief. Five days of stressed sleep patterns and numerous interventions had stretched his durability thin, and he was ready to drop asleep for a long time buried among his furry siblings. He didn't care how or why the last big group of two-legs disappeared in a flash from the tower. The main point was that they were gone, and the forest was safe for a few more years, if the vixen was right. She often was.

Yawning, he turned in the direction of the vixen's den. It was time to sleep.

* * *

Tokubetsu jounin Mitarashi Anko was having the time of her life proctoring the second phase of the Chuunin exams. It was her first time doing it, and she enjoyed seeing the brats shivering in genuine fear of her, like those prisoners awaiting her in the basement of T&I. She licked her lips and grinned.

Most of the teams coming in on the fifth day were stragglers, many incomplete teams who automatically fail the exam as per the rules. A handful were teams that were sneaky enough to lie in wait and ambush a tired team close to the tower. While she didn't care how they got a scroll, only that they got a pair, it did mean that she had to stay until time was up in case there were last-minute qualifiers. Twirling a kunai, she prowled around the tower, keeping an ear and eye out for information - she was in T&I, after all, and the entire point of T&I was to extract information - and frowned when she overheard the muttering of a resting genin team.

A pair of red eyes with vertical slits for pupils? She'd heard the same description multiple times from different teams, sometimes one or the other, but something that was mentioned that frequently could be pieced together well enough. She hadn't encountered anything like it during her own Chuunin exams almost 10 years ago, though she admitted that one trip through the Forest of Death didn't mean that she'd seen everything in it. She could have put down a mention or two of such a description as a genjutsu cast by an enemy team. The fifth or sixth…either that genin was a one-trick pony, or there was a grain of truth in there. She'd find out soon enough.

A bell rung from the top of the tower, marking the end of the second phase, and she made her way the main assembly point, where way too many genin milled about, waiting for instructions. Her face soured. The Forest of Death survival test, it seemed, wasn't challenging enough to prevent an elimination round. Ibiki would be teasing her for her failure for weeks. She and her braggart mouth. Oh well.

She'd just have to make the next Forest of Death challenge harder to survive, is all.

Annoyed, she sicced the brats on each other in the elimination rounds then stalked off to arrange for the retrieval and clean-up of Training Ground 44. While it was tacitly understood that not all corpses could be fished out, some genin might still be alive, and Konoha liked to maintain its image as a friendly village, so retrieval it was. It took the rest of the evening for her teams to sweep their assigned quadrants, with nightfall imminent by the time the gates were locked up.

There were no sightings of red eyes, so she shrugged and put it out of her mind. It was probably a genjutsu.

.

And it's a wrap! A bit shorter than I'd hoped, but it's a nice cut-off point to continue the next chapter, I swear. Something like that. Anyway, please read and review!


	4. Chapter 3

Woohoo! You guys are awesome - we've managed to hit 100 follows and counting. I'm so happy, thanks y'all!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

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**Chapter 3**

Umino Iruka, chuunin and Academy instructor, palmed through the sheaf of student evaluation reports on his desk, frowning. It was that time of the year again: the genin graduation exam. How time flew. At the top of the class was Hyuuga Neji, budding prodigy with a huge attitude problem, though not as large as Uchiha Sasuke's, the top student in next batch. Iruka sighed. Were all his top students destined to be jerks?

To be fair, both boys had had their share of sob stories so he sort of understood how they turned out that way. Neji's was a long time ago now, but Sasuke's was pretty recent, especially if you considered his age. The Uchiha Massacre occurred just four years ago. For Sasuke, that was almost half his lifetime, and the boy hadn't adjusted well in the aftermath, amidst a decimated clan much reduced in size, imprisoned clan members, a criminal genius brother, and a mother who struggled to raise her remaining son. It was a messy affair all around. Iruka suspected that it could have been a lot worse if not for the subtle intervention of one Hatake Kakashi.

The man was terrifying and brilliant at work, for all that he acted loopy when off-duty. Kakashi had graduated before Iruka even started at the Academy, blazing a path that was the talk of Konoha for years until Uchiha Itachi came along. He'd always been rather stilted in social interactions, but it hadn't affected his stellar performance, as Iruka found out when he realised what Kakashi did with the information he requested on Uchiha graduates over what seemed like a casual lunch break. Iruka didn't even suspect that Kakashi had an ulterior motive.

Apparently, said motive was thwarting conspiracies that no one knew about. They both might have been in ANBU once, but Kakashi was in a class of his own, even among the elites. Come to think of it, the knowledge that they were secret colleagues once was probably why Kakashi trusted the information he provided in the first place. Hound was quickly becoming the most senior member in the organisation, far exceeding the typical tenure of an ANBU. Most people chalked it up to his genius.

Only a few knew he stayed because it was all he had left.

He hid it well. All ANBU who served long tenures develop quirks after a while, so Kakashi's awkward social manners and porn-reading wasn't too surprising. The only thing everyone got inured to was his tardiness, inherited from Obito, and his constant absence, supposedly due to high demand. What few people knew was that sometimes the demand actually came from Kakashi and not the other way round. By right he should have failed his psych evaluation long ago.

In fact, Iruka heard he _had _failed this time, but barring the Yamanaka who evaluated him, who was held under a confidentiality seal anyway, there was no other way to find out except to ask Hatake Kakashi outright - and he didn't have a death wish, thank you very much.

Though that might explain why he'd seen Kakashi more than a week in a row.

Iruka shuffled his reports and arranged them in ascending order by total score for the Hokage's perusal. Kakashi was an enigma the average ANBU could never hope to decipher, so Iruka was better off not trying.

* * *

Kakashi was not taking his forced sabbatical well at all.

Just ten days into his regression to jounin status and he was already very antsy. He wondered if this was what drug addicts on withdrawal felt. Did they feel positively murderous, like he did? Every little thing in the village seemed to be tailor-made to piss him off. It was probably a good thing that psych evaluators always had their identities concealed during evaluations, lest the ANBU hunted them down.

Yamanaka Inoichi was a very, very dead man.

No one had asked him about his prolonged presence in Konoha yet. It wasn't long enough a coalescence for any ninja but ANBU to be considered weird, for now. Hound's absence would start ringing bells soon. Kakashi took a deep breath, closed his eye, and tried to control his growing frustration.

He must have failed, since a random child took one look at him and started bawling. Damn. Giving it up as a bad job, Kakashi shunshined into his apartment for a long, mind-numbing bath. Once done, he plopped onto his couch and stared at his ceiling. What was he to do with his life now?

Other people had normal hobbies to destress and let off steam. Kakashi's hobby was playing P. I. to look for a boy many believed dead; when he needed stress therapy, he picked apart Root, thread by thread, until he felt better again. He wondered if Danzo, already frothing at the mouth at the atrophy of his private ninja corps, would have an apoplectic fit if he found out the destruction of Root was just an afterthought. The thrill of the chase was long gone, anyway. Root was just a riddle and Kakashi had all the clues, ready to be completed at leisure.

He needed a new way to blow off steam. And since killing fellow Konoha ninja, no matter how accidentally, was against the law…it was a good thing they had Training Ground 44, he supposed. At least it wasn't against the law if he accidentally depleted the fauna population too much. He could probably disprove Anko's raucous mentions of a red-eyed creature while he was at it.

Training at Training Ground 44, while neither strictly discouraged nor encouraged, was not common practice, since everyone associated it with the Chuunin exams. Why retake exams when you don't have to? It wasn't even particularly lethal for anyone jounin level and above. It had monstrous beasts though, which suited Kakashi fine since he didn't want to fight small fry bandits like any common jounin. With that in mind, he placed his leave notification at the Hokage Tower and set off in that direction, already packed for a few days' journey. If he wound up leaving for a few weeks instead, well, who cared?

* * *

Naruto froze in his tracks when he sensed a single foreign presence enter his forest. It hadn't entered from the west, which most of the two-legs used during the off-season to go to the tower in the middle of the forest. This one came in from the south, heading directly for the territory of the tigers. Naruto sucked on his lip, undecided. On one hand, the tigers were apex predators and well-equipped to defend themselves; on the other hand, Naruto loved being fair to all the animals, and that meant he had to protect all of them. He climbed up a tree and started to travel among the branches, trusting his senses and, later, his nose, when he picked up the metallic tang of blood. He sped up as roars of fury and pain rose in the distance.

It was _his_ forest. No one hunted in his forest if it wasn't meant to be eaten, and those two-legs seldom needed the amount of meat that the giant beasts of his forest could provide. Naruto wasn't going to allow their lives to be wasted for sport.

He blitzed through the last few strides and dropped, snarling, right above the two-legs. To his disappointment, the two-legs managed to avoid hims claws completely and managed a counter-strike with a faceted knife of some kind. He followed up with a quick kick to the stomach, sending Naruto flying into a tree.

Naruto coughed and wheezed, glaring at the silver-haired two-legs while the tigers escaped. But the two-legs merely stashed his blade and kept a non-threatening posture, hands open in front of him, single eye staring in disbelief.

"What are you doing here, boy?" the two-legs asked.

Naruto's eyes widened. Here was a person who spoke to him like the one in his head! He'd heard other two-legs making similar sounds before, but it had never been addressed to him when in his forest. Hazy memories of recognising those sounds - words, he remembered - from the outside world, beyond his mind, floated to the surface, and he tried to recall how to voice those words aloud for the first time in years.

"What are you doing in my forest?" he tried.

Kakashi stared at the boy before him. He was the wildest child Kakashi had ever seen, with matted, mud-caked hair and dirt-crusted skin. He semi-crouched on all fours, stark naked, and spoke a mangled language of growled maybe-words and yips that meant nothing to Kakashi. Vertically-slit pupils tracked Kakashi's body movements distrustfully. Even as he watched, the boy cleared his throat and tried again.

"What…doing…forest?" That was all the could understand between the growls.

"Training," Kakashi said. "And what are you doing here?"

The boy cocked his head for a few seconds, mouthing the words. That made it clear to Kakashi that the boy had learned to speak before, since there was no way he could see Kakashi's mouth through his mask. How long did it take for someone to forget how to speak?

Years, probably. It was an unpleasant thought.

"I…live…" the boy said. He probably said a good bit more than what Kakashi understood.

"You live here?" Kakashi clarified. The boy nodded.

"Why…you hunt…animals…in my forest?" he said, enunciating each syllable slowly and carefully.

"I'm just training, as I said."

The boy scowled. "Train…don't hurt…animals."

Kakashi thought of telling the boy that the giant beasts were corralled here for the sole purpose of ninja training, but decided against it. It wouldn't go down well. "I won't, if you can tell me why you're living here," he said instead.

"Don't know…how…get out. My home now," the boy said. "Don't want…leave."

"What's your name?"

Silence. "Um," the boy said, scratching his haystack of hair. "Brat?"

That…wasn't a name. Okay.

"Would you like to come with me? To the village?" The mention of the village sparked recognition in the boy's eyes, then hesitation. He shook his head.

"Forest home now," he said. He jumped up to the nearest tree branch, intending to leave. "Bye."

"Wait!" Kakashi said, thinking fast. "Can you show me where the river is?" He didn't need a guide, of course, but it would buy him time, and the boy might be more presentable, or recognisable, if he could be persuaded to wash up. There wasn't much Kakashi could do about child-sized clothes at the moment.

The boy paused. "Okay," he said, shimmying down the tree. "Here. Follow," he insisted, when he noticed Kakashi watching him. Kakashi shrugged and started to follow the boy on foot.

The boy navigated as though the entire forest was his living room, and perhaps it was. He kept to the ground, maybe thinking that Kakashi would lose track of him if he travelled through the trees. Kakashi wouldn't, not really, once he'd taken note of his scent (he didn't stink despite his dirty appearance) and curiously large-but-dormant chakra signature. The boy would be a formidable powerhouse as a ninja.

The river, as Kakashi had known, was not very far away, and soon both of them were crouched by the river bank, the boy watching him curiously. Kakashi made a show of opening and filling his canteen. After a while, the boy shrugged and cupped a handful of water to drink. An idea popped in Kakashi's head.

"Boy," he said, noting the speed at which the boy's eyes snapped to him. Slowly, he cupped water in his hands, made sure the boy was watching, and splashed it over his face, making sure to exaggerate rubbing motions on his face. The boy watched him, puzzled, but when Kakashi repeated his routine, the boy copied him.

It took several rounds. The boy's chest and shoulders were soaking wet before Kakashi could see clean skin underneath the layer of dirt. He shook his entire body, just like an animal, and looked askance at Kakashi.

Kakashi's breath caught. Six whisker-like marks scarred the boy's wet cheeks, just like…just like-

"Naruto?" he whispered.

.

And so they meet! I'm not evil enough to keep them apart for too long, apparently. What'll happen now that Kakashi's found Naruto?

Stay tuned, and please read and review!


	5. Chapter 4

Omg I love you guys (and girls). The response to the previous chapter was awesome, and you all deserve hugs right now but instead I ended up updating a little later than usual due to life, argh. I will try harder next time!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

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**Chapter 4**

Naruto cocked his head at the two-legs…the man, he corrected himself, proud of remembering the word. The man seemed shocked, single eye widened and eyebrow raised past his hairline. What had the man said again?

"Na-ru-to?" he parroted, watching the man. The man was stiff now, facial muscles making minuscule twitches, his eye conveying so much unspoken emotions that Naruto couldn't figure out.

_Naruto._ The word was familiar somehow. He rolled it in his mind, wondering why.

_That's you, brat_, the voice in his head muttered. Naruto grinned in excitement; the voice in his head only answered when it felt like it, which wasn't often, but sometimes was still better than never.

_So that's my name? _He asked it eagerly. The voice snorted.

_It was what that redhead banshee wanted to call you, yes. That is your name._

"Naruto," the man whispered again. One gloved hand reached out, as though to touch him, but then the man stopped, fingers curling, and drew back.

"You?" Naruto said. The man shook his head.

"Your name, Naruto. Your name's Naruto."

Naruto sighed. All this miscommunication made him impatient. Why couldn't this man understand him as easily as his siblings? This was ridiculous.

_That's because you're not speaking human language very well, brat. _Naruto imagined sticking his tongue out at it.

"I know," he said out loud, trying his best to form his tongue and lips right. "I am Naruto-" and wasn't that novel, that he had a human name? "-who are you?"

_You have a human name because you're human, brat._

_You're very talkative today, _Naruto thought back at the voice absently, struggling to keep track of both conversations. He never had to do this before, two conversations in the same language at the same time. It was confusing. The voice in his head snorted and Naruto got a mental feeling of something curling up and ignoring him.

"Kakashi," the man replied. Naruto dragged his attention back to the outside world.

"Kakashi," Naruto repeated, rolling the name on his tongue. He hoped he got it correct. He must have, because the man relaxed and sat down on the river bank, still looking dazed. Naruto looked down at the river and took another sip of water.

A nascent thought trembled to life. If this man - this Kakashi - knew his name…would he, could he be someone Naruto knew, too? He couldn't remember much of his old life before the forest.

"Have you…known me…a long time?" he asked.

There was no hiding the raw anguish in Kakashi's eye at that question. "Yes," he replied softly, still drinking in the sight of Naruto, replacing his last image of him as a pipsqueak prankster with this naked, wild, healthy boy. Naruto should be eleven this year, five years later, and so much had changed. He was alive when many believed him dead. That was what mattered. "Yes, I've known you a long time."

Against his best judgement, he reached out to muss Naruto's hair. The boy stiffened, then relaxed when nothing dangerous happened. To Kakashi's amusement, he leaned his head against Kakashi's hand and purred. The inhabitants of the forest must have had a larger impact on the boy than he'd first thought.

They stayed like that for a while, basking in the bubbling sound of the river. When Kakashi stirred, Naruto skittered just beyond arm's reach, suddenly aware of the distance between them. Kakashi sent him an eye-smile.

"Would you like to eat, Naruto-kun?"

Naruto perked up. "Eat what?"

Kakashi dug in his pouch for one of his storage scrolls. He hadn't brought much with him, having intended to hunt for food as long as necessary, so what he had was pretty basic fare. He unsealed the correct scroll and waited for the characteristic smoke to clear. Tins of sardine, cubes of soup stock, ration bars, various spices, and balls of onigiri appeared. He snuck a peek at Naruto and chuckled; the boy's eyes were round like saucers, as though he couldn't believe his eyes. To someone who hadn't been exposed to the finer aspects of shinobi life, storage scrolls must seem magical. Kakashi's cheer dampened as he recalled why Naruto was so ignorant in the first place.

If he ever discovered the bastard that abandoned Naruto in the Forest of Death, he'd take great pleasure in torturing him to death until they begged for mercy. For now, he picked through his stash and offered an unwrapped onigiri to Naruto, who sniffed it curiously. He took the onigiri from Kakashi's hands and turned it around in his hands. When he was satisfied with his visual inspection, he chose a corner to nibble from.

"Umm," Naruto said, frowning at the onigiri. He took a second nibble, swallowed, and went back to inspecting the rice ball. "It's…not sour?"

"Rice isn't sour, Naruto-kun," Kakashi said. What on earth had the boy been eating in Konoha? If anything, the sticky rice should taste plain, but sour?

Naruto's face changed on his third bite when he reached the sashimi filling in the onigiri. "Fish!" he identified excitedly. "Want more?"

"No thanks, Naruto-kun, this is enough." He finished his own onigiri and sealed the rest of the food back into his scroll, only whip his head back at the sound of a loud splash to see Naruto grinning triumphantly at a fish struggling in his claws. Those claws lengthened and sharpened as he watched. When sufficiently sharp, Naruto ran a hand along the fish, peeled off a strip of flesh, dropped it into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

Kakashi stared. That was…well, probably the freshest sashimi he'd ever seen someone eat, if it could be called that.

"Fish," Naruto said, offering the bleeding, still-flopping fish to Kakashi in a clawed hand. His onigiri, Kakashi noticed, was stripped bare of rice, the seaweed wrapper left on the grass as though inedible.

"It's okay, you eat," Kakashi said. Naruto shrugged and continued eating, filleting and devouring the fish with alacrity.

"I have to eat it…like this," he shared with Kakashi in a conspirational tone. "The others…can eat fish with…their teeth."

Dear god, were there secret savages in the Forest of Death? "There are others like you?"

"Nine!"

Oh dear.

"Wash your hands," Kakashi said, for the sake of saying something. For a moment, Naruto looked like he didn't understand, then he leaned towards the river and followed Kakashi's instructions. He held his hands up for inspection, wiggling his fingers. Kakashi hummed.

"So what do you usually do for the rest of the day?" he asked the boy.

"Sleep. Play. Hunt at night." Naruto yawned, exposing sharp canines. "Sleep now?"

"You go ahead." Kakashi hesitated, then asked, "Where do you sleep?"

Naruto shrugged, looking around. Kakashi followed him as he left the river bank. A bush facing an open clearing was quickly chosen, and Naruto settled under it, allowing the leafy bush to shade his body while he kept a good line of sight of the clearing in front of him. He curled on his side and closed his eyes.

Kakashi watched the boy's antics with growing disquiet. Nocturnal, either carnivorous or omnivorous - Kakashi was leaning towards the latter, since Naruto hadn't rejected the onigiri outright - and napping alone on the ground, instead of up a tree, indicated that he'd probably grown up with a predator. It shed some light on how a young child, no matter how precocious, was able to survive in the Forest of Death for years when genin have been known to lose their lives. Whatever protected Naruto had to be strong enough to fend off the giant beasts that lived here. He sat down at the foot of a nearby tree and pulled out an Icha Icha book to read while the boy slept, noticing how Naruto snapped to full alert at the noise before he continued sleeping.

_Good situational awareness too,_ Kakashi added to his mental list, pleased. Mannerisms and animalistic food choices aside, Naruto had turned out okay. Konoha, though, might take a different mindset, considering his claws and slitted pupils. Whisker marks alone were harmless, but those claws might be uncomfortable reminders of the jinchuuriki's bijuu.

Scratch "might", they _would _be too uncomfortable for the villagers. They'd bray for the boy's death on sight. Not for the first time, Kakashi wondered at the stupidity groupthink incurred in people, and congratulated himself for being an outlier. Being a born genius had its uses.

That same genius had also been stymied for years when it came to his search for Naruto, largely due to the time lapse between Naruto's disappearance and his notification. Kakashi stifled his annoyance. Well, no more. He'd found the boy, the last surviving member of his sensei's family, and this time he'd do right by him. Thus decided, he settled down to read Icha Icha, content to be near Naruto until he woke up.

* * *

Sunset in the Forest of Death was a gloomy affair. This part of the forest floor, cast in perpetual half-darkness even in the afternoon, was almost pitch-black by five o'clock. With it came a gentle hush as it crossed the threshold between day and night, diurnals giving way to nocturnals, sight giving way to smell and hearing. Naruto stirred awake, as though beckoned by the change in sounds. Kakashi stayed still as the boy's eerily glowing dark-red eyes settled on him, hoping that Naruto remembered why he was there.

"Yo," he greeted the boy. "Awake now?"

Naruto nodded, still staring at Kakashi. After a while, he rolled over and stretched, fox-like, and averted his eyes from the jounin, deeming him a non-threat. Kakashi glimpsed a set of sharp teeth when Naruto yawned.

"Hunt?" Naruto half-mumbled, half-growled, slipping into his rusty non-speech habit so soon after waking. "You come?"

"Sure, why not? I've nothing else to do."

Halfway through another stretch, Naruto glared and pointed a finger at him. "Don't kill…too many," he warned, "Enough…to eat only."

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry Naruto-kun. Need help?"

Naruto snorted. Kakashi took that as a no, since the boy had turned windward to sniff out his prey. In no time at all, he caught a desired scent and hared off, spurring Kakashi to follow with chakra-enhanced leaps. The boy was _fast_, and his familiarity with the forest probably helped even out the odds against his jounin-trained speed. The gap between them never closed. That changed in a split second, when Naruto leaped to a stop on a tree branch. Kakashi avoided crashing into him by mere inches.

"You're noisy," Naruto complained in a whisper. He made an exasperated shushing gesture then trained his eyes on his prey for tonight: a family of wild boars with young piglets. Kakashi raised an eyebrow. Him, noisy? He could scarcely believe his ears. All those years in ANBU, countless successes in stealth, tracking, and assassination, and an untrained wild child called him noisy?

Well. That was new.

Disgruntled, Kakashi crouched low on the branch, using chakra to stick to its narrow surface while he watched Naruto. The boy crept closer to his prey, jumping from tree to tree without a sound, even to Kakashi's attuned ears. Sometimes he adjusted his approach to keep his position leeward. When he was close enough to the boars, he extended his claws, chose a target, and pounced.

He landed right on the back of a boar, which bellowed its displeasure and proceeded to rodeo with Naruto clinging like a monkey. The rest of the boar family scattered. Before Kakashi could react, Naruto slipped sideways from the boar's back and swiped his claws deep across its jugular in a fatal blow. The boar roared and thrashed, trying to throw off the menace, but it was in vain as Naruto had jumped into a nearby tree. Gradually, weakened by blood loss, the boar stumbled, fell on its side, and failed to get up again, panting in rage. Naruto dropped to the ground and approached it from behind. From where he sat, Kakashi could just about glimpse Naruto's raised hand, claws shortened to normal, before Naruto slammed his hand down on the boar's neck, breaking its spine. The boar's struggling ceased.

With a soft exhale, Naruto extracted his bloodied hand from the boar's carcass then proceeded to wriggle his arms underneath it. Kakashi spied a length of knotty vines near Naruto, which the boy twined around the carcass with some difficulty. Any sceptical thoughts Kakashi entertained about untrained, chakra-less impossibilities were blown away when Naruto completed his knots, found sufficient purchase, heaved, and somehow managed to drag the carcass away while he strained forward like a common mule.

Without chakra.

It wasn't a fluke, either, since Kakashi couldn't detect any spike of chakra. Kakashi followed a distance behind Naruto, puzzling out the situation. He had to be using chakra somehow. He had to be, otherwise how could a single child drag an adult boar on a trek through the forest? A small voice in his head reminded him to keep his mind open. Just because a typical human didn't have a ninja's monstrous, chakra-enhanced strength didn't mean that they couldn't have it, and Naruto was a jinchuuriki. That might be why he could do it.

Naruto was slowing down, his steps growing hesitant. Thinking he was tiring, Kakashi closed the gap between them to offer aid, but apparently not. The boy was shooting suspicious glances at him. Whatever his suspicions were, he seemed to heed it, because he shrugged off his makeshift rope and walked away from the carcass, but not before chittering in some animalistic language to thin air. He beckoned for Kakashi to leave with him.

Ah well, why not? He was more interested in the boy than whatever reason he decided to abandon his kill prematurely, anyway. Kakashi suspected he knew why - and he was proven right a few seconds later, when muffled yips and barks registered at the edge of his hearing, too soft for most shinobi to hear. They were Naruto's pack, and Naruto didn't trust him enough to expose his pack to him yet. That was fine. They'd just met today, after all.

Kakashi shifted the boar piglet he'd killed earlier to a more comfortable position as he trekked behind his late sensei's son. It would become the first proper meal he'd have with Naruto. His heart lifted, despite the horde of questions that threatened to crash out of his mouth if he wasn't careful.

He'd found Naruto at last.

.

A slow chapter, I grant you, but it'll pick up soon! Gotta give poor Kakashi a rest and some bonding time after all those years of searching, amirite? Please read and review!


	6. Chapter 5

My apologies in advance if there are any mistakes in this chapter. I've been traveling between states for work so this chapter's uploaded via my mobile phone and I have clumsy fingers. Another short chapter since I've been on the road, but I'll try harder next time!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

**Chapter 5**

Naruto, Kakashi realised, wasn't fit for civilisation.

They'd spent the past few days getting to know each other. Naruto stuck to him like glue. It had come to a point where Naruto was unconsciously following his sleeping patterns instead of his usual nocturnal one, since he stirred every time Kakashi woke. The boy almost never left his side, though he set aside time every evening to hunt and leave food in a "random" place that Kakashi suspected was near his adopted family. It sounded normal, except that Naruto went about it like an animal.

Perhaps he shouldn't have been surprised, considering the boy's social lessons stopped when he was six years old. The orphanage had provided minimal guidance at best. Now, almost five years later, Naruto's manners would be unacceptable for an eleven-year-old if his particular circumstances weren't made known.

Naruto mimicked Kakashi well enough when prompted, but that was it. Naruto didn't understand honorifics, or polite manners of speech, or hierarchy, or table manners, or…well, almost everything about society, including not going about stark naked.

Kakashi sighed. It was one of the first things he'd tried to reeducate Naruto about; after all, he could bring home a wild child and people might not notice the wildness at a glance…but a _naked_ wild child? They'd be the talk of town! Unfortunately, Naruto couldn't or didn't want to understand the significance of clothing. Kakashi had coaxed Naruto to wear one of his spare undershirts on his second day in the forest. It was thin, sleeveless, and he thought it allowed great freedom of movement. It was, of course, oversized for the child, falling almost to his knees. Kakashi didn't know whether it was that excess fabric or sheer unfamiliarity that led to Naruto stubbornly removing and refusing clothes thereafter.

He also preferred moving around on all fours instead of on two legs. Kakashi noticed him aping his upright posture now and then, but years of crouching seemed to have taken a toll on the boy's body. Naruto tired easily when walking, and his shoulders were hunched, moulded into position by constant four-limbed travel.

His diet…well, the less Kakashi dwelled on it, the better, like right now, when Naruto was ripping chunks of raw meat with his bare teeth. Perhaps he'd have more luck coaxing Naruto to cook his meat before eating it. Baby steps, right?

The problem with being a detail-oriented, OCD ninja was that Kakashi expected everything in life to be of a certain standard, and lowering his standards so much really, really sucked.

Kakashi stuffed the last of his onigiri into his mouth. He would've sighed again otherwise. Nearby, Naruto was likewise finishing his meal. Upon sensing Kakashi's gaze on him, Naruto made sure he had a good frontal view and slowly licked his hands clean of blood and gore until they were wet, coated in saliva, but clean.

_Baby steps, _Kakashi reminded himself. Those hands were already better than their dirt-encrusted state a few days ago. Outwardly, he nodded his encouragement. Naruto grinned.

"What will you do today?" he asked Kakashi, slowly but clearly. His speech was the one thing that improved fast due to constant exposure and old memories of human speech. There were much fewer animalistic sounds when he spoke, for which Kakashi was grateful.

"Hm. I'm not sure." Having packed his food back in his storage seal, Kakashi flopped onto his back and stared at the canopy above, marveling at bits of sky that peeked through. "Maybe I'll just stay here for today."

Naruto peered at him. "You're not leaving?"

Kakashi flinched, praying that the boy didn't notice how much that question hurt him. "Why?" he said instead. "Do you want me to leave?"

"Well…no," Naruto said. "It's just…two-legs - I mean, people always leave after five sunsets. It's been seven…and you're still here."

Five? Kakashi wondered about that specific number, ridiculously relieved that somehow he, the socially-stunted scarecrow, wasn't actually being chased away by his sensei's son. Then it clicked.

"You mean the chuunin exams?" Kakashi asked. Only the second part of the chuunin exam, held in this very forest, would always be held for a predictable five days per cycle. It had to be that.

"Dunno. But many of us die every time." Naruto scuffed the forest floor with his foot. "Whatever it is, I don't like it."

_You can be safe if you come with me,_ Kakashi wished to say, but he knew Naruto would refuse even before he asked.

"Say, Naruto-kun, would you like to play?" As expected, Naruto's eyes brightened.

"Yeah! Let's play, let's play!" he crowed, scampering closer to Kakashi. Kakashi swore he could imagine Naruto's imaginary tail wagging. Smiling a little, he sat up and beckoned for Naruto to follow him.

"Let's look for some pebbles and stones first. I have a fun game to teach you."

"Okay!" Naruto cheered. He dropped to all fours to do as instructed, though he resorted to walking on two feet once he'd found too many stones to carry in one hand. They managed to amass a small pile in no time at all.

"What next?" he asked once Kakashi sat down again. Kakashi patted the ground beside him in an invitation to sit.

"Let's play a game to see how strong we are, Naruto-kun. Can you crush these stones?" To demonstrate, Kakashi picked up a pebble, laid it in his palm, then fisted his hand to crush it. He let the resulting dust trickle out, opening his hand to prove that the pebble was really gone. Naruto's eyes widened.

"It's gone!" he exclaimed, staring at Kakashi's hand and the pile of stone dust. "You did it with one hand!"

_And a liberal application of chakra_, Kakashi added mentally, not that Naruto would know what the word "chakra" meant. He'd created this harmless game to test a theory that had burned in his mind since his first night in the forest.

The speed and nimbleness with which Naruto navigated the forest and its trees, the strength in those little arms when he used his bare hands to hunt…Naruto had to be enhancing his body in some way, unconsciously. Not even Academy students could do what Naruto did. Hence his test disguised as a game. It was one thing to display superhuman strength with one's whole body. It was another thing altogether to focus that strength and crush something in the palm of one's hand.

At the moment, Naruto seemed to be rotating a stone in his hand, squeezing, shifting, then squeezing again, scowling the whole time. When Naruto dropped the stone and shook his hand, Kakashi started to doubt his theory. If Naruto couldn't ignore the pain from the stone, he wouldn't squeeze hard enough to crush it. But if he could be persuaded to add padding…ah. Ignoring Naruto's attention at his sudden movement, Kakashi worked his right glove free and proffered it to the boy.

"Wear it over your hand, like this," he encouraged Naruto, showing the boy his remaining gloved hand.

"What for?"

"These gloves are made with Kevlar, so they should buffer your hands enough for you to focus on the task." Seeing Naruto's incomprehension, Kakashi rephrased, "You won't feel pain when you crush the stone."

"Ohhhh." Understanding dawned on Naruto's face and he scrambled to put on Kakashi's glove. Kakashi showed him the correct way to wear it, guiding each of his fingers through the right holes, then tightening the wrist strap. Naruto wiggled his exposed fingertips, admiring his new look. Fortunately, Kakashi had delicate hands, and Naruto had rather large ones for a boy his age, so the glove was just a bit loose.

"Try to crush the rock again," Kakashi said as he sat back to observe. Naruto obeyed, retrieving his first stone and squeezing, harder, harder until his arm was shaking, harder still, then-_crack_. Naruto opened his hand and gaped.

The stone lay in uneven halves, not yet crushed, but also no longer whole.

The silence lasted a second before Naruto whooped in joy.

"Kakashi! Kakashi, I did it, Kakashi, I cracked the stone!"

Kakashi absently spared an amused smile at his antics. "Good job, Naruto-kun, but you haven't crushed it yet." He pointed at the pile of dust that proved his own attempt. While Naruto grumbled and returned to his game, Kakashi's mind churned.

He hadn't felt anything when Naruto cracked the stone. That meant the boy hadn't used chakra, only raw strength, which was an amazing feat. It was, however, proving his theory false, and that left him rather miffed and very curious. Where was Naruto's strength coming from?

There were several more loud cracks as pieces of stone broke off and grated against each other in Naruto's hand.

"That's it?" Naruto grumbled, frustrated. The stone was in many small pieces, too big to be called dust. Naruto's arm was visibly shaking after his efforts.

_Still no chakra_, Kakashi noted. Gai would love to train Naruto. An image of Naruto in green spandex popped into his mind and he shuddered. _Gai can love Naruto, but I am grounding Naruto's fashion sense first if it's the last thing I do!_

"Maa, that's quite good for a first try," he praised to console the boy. "Why don't we try with a bigger stone this time? Maybe you'll do better when you can use both hands." Like before, he demonstrated what he meant by crushing a larger stone between his hands, and had to hide a chuckle at Naruto's half-awe, half-frustrated look.

"It's so hard," Naruto complained, but he chose a stone anyway. Kakashi removed his remaining glove and passed it to Naruto, pleased to see that Naruto could remember how to put it on. Thus armed, Naruto stared down at his stone with determination and squeezed.

The cracks came much faster this time, though the larger stone took longer to break. And _still no chakra_, that boy would be an absolute taijutsu monster as a shinobi….

Naruto snarled as he pushed more strength into his hands. His claws slowly extended, his eyes practically afire with his determination, glowing red, while his whisker marks grew more pronounced. Then, before Kakashi could comment, a very familiar, very sinister, non-human chakra burst out from Naruto in a red haze.

The stone crumbled to dust just as birds shot towards the skies with cries of alarm.

_Shit. This is bad, this is VERY bad…._

"Naruto!" Kakashi snapped, scrambling to his feet. "Naruto, stop!"

Naruto blinked. The red haze (_and its terrible, terrible chakra_) disappeared, but the damage had been done. Kakashi had his answer, and he didn't like it one bit.

"What's wrong, Kakashi?" Naruto asked, confused.

"Naruto-kun, we need to go now. Come with me."

"No!" Naruto shrank back. Kakashi saw him eyeing the trees for an escape path and bit back a curse. He could faintly sense chakra flaring in Konoha - something that powerful had to be the Sandaime's, for him to feel it all the way here - and the Forest of Death wasn't that far away. He was running out of time. They had to leave. _Now_.

"Family here," Naruto insisted. "I won't leave them."

"Trust me," Kakashi said urgently, "please Naruto. I'll bring you back here. Your family will be safe. I promise."

"Why?" Naruto asked, confused.

"Naruto-kun, _please_-" Kakashi broke off, sensing the large mass of chakra signatures rapidly blitzing towards them. Konoha would be here soon, there was _no time_-

Some of his desperation must have shone through, because miraculously, Naruto came and wrapped his arms and legs round Kakashi's body, clinging tight.

"Okay," he said.

Kakashi thanked all the gods he'd never believed in before, and disappeared in a shunshin.

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Oh no, oh no, and now they gotta run! What have you done, Kakashi?! (Or more to the point, what did I just put Kakashi through, haha.)

I'm not really pleased with this chapter's flow, but it's probably better that I update rather than not. Maybe I'll come back and fix it when I have time. Anyway, I hope you liked it, and please read and review!


	7. Chapter 6

Lots of love to all of you who took the time to follow, favourite, and especially review the previous chapter. We've hit the 200-favourites milestone and I am so happy I can't - just can't - aww, thanks guys. Here's a longer chapter as thanks!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

.

**Chapter 6**

They didn't stop running until they neared Tanzaku Gai.

Kakashi's limbs were trembling by then, grateful he hadn't had to expend extra chakra to hold onto Naruto since the boy was securely on his back. He spared a moment to admire the boy's tenacity; holding on tight for hours was no small feat for an untrained person.

Now, though, he had to find a good hiding place for the night before he dropped them both. He hadn't sensed any pursuers since two hours ago, but Kakashi wouldn't risk lowering his guard, for all that he'd concealed his tracks as he ran.

Calling them "pursuers" was overkill actually, since he'd sensed them fanning out in scouting and tracking formations instead of capture. The first taste of Kyuubi's chakra in eleven years no doubt spooked Konoha. They might hope it was a fluke. A few might entertain the hope that it was Naruto, still alive. The most pessimistic bastards, such as himself, would have hoped it wasn't from the new jinchuuriki of the Nine-Tails, since it would have meant a hidden village obtaining another jinchuuriki.

Regardless of their non-aggression, Kakashi wasn't about to relax yet. He maintained some distance from Tanzaku Gai as he scouted and finally found a spot that satisfied his paranoia. He wasted no time ringing the place with seals and traps in a small circle, enough to give Kakashi a split second's warning; it would do, since Kakashi would be on high-alert until Naruto was safe again. Once done, he crouched on a wide branch and allowed Naruto to climb down.

Naruto did so gingerly, his limbs protesting the change in position. Kakashi felt Naruto wince against his back as he stretched his feet down. It sent a stab of guilt down his spine.

"Are you okay, Naruto-kun?" he murmured as he gave Naruto a quick visual evaluation. The boy had retreated towards the tree trunk to rest there, but he nodded, heeding the question. He was tired. That was to be expected, since it was - Kakashi snuck a quick glance at the sky - almost dawn, and they'd started running at sunset. He had to eat soon to combat symptoms of early-stage chakra exhaustion. He opened his food storage scroll, retrieved two ration bars, and offered one to Naruto while he tore the wrapper of the second with his teeth. Naruto shook his head, so Kakashi pocketed the ration bar for later.

"Maa, sorry for taking off like that," Kakashi said. "I'll bring you back once things are better, okay? I promise." He settled down for watch duty until morning, when he'd move them to a more forested area.

Internally, he started cobbling together a plan. The Sandaime Hokage knew he'd be in the Forest of Death for training, so his non-appearance during the search would raise red flags for the Hokage. It would be wishful thinking to hope that the Hokage would chalk it off to his usual passive-aggressive disobedience; the Hokage was old, not stupid. He'd notice something amiss.

Misdirection or truth? A small part of Kakashi was petty, wanting more time with Naruto for himself. It wasn't as though Konoha cared much for the boy when he was a ward of the village. On the other hand, he knew the Hokage genuinely cared for Naruto, so it would put his mind at ease to know that the boy was alive.

First, Kakashi would have to instill some sense of social awareness in the boy. Wasn't that ironic, the social recluse teaching a boy manners?

It would hurt the Hokage to see what the years had done to Naruto. But he was nicknamed the Professor, not just for his intellect and strategies, but also for his ability to strip away emotions to get to the root of problems - or emotional situations, as this case would be. The Hokage would be fine.

The truth then, Kakashi decided. The next question was Naruto's readiness to reenter society. They'd made progress over the past week, but not enough, and Naruto was more partial to the forest at the moment. Kakashi understood his need for familiarity; they were similar like that.

Would he be able to persuade the Hokage to let Naruto stay in the Forest of Death a little longer while Kakashi coaxed him out of his shell? It wasn't uninhabitable, evinced by Naruto's ability to stay alive for years…no, he had to empathise as a civilian, not as a shinobi. A civilian would be in mortal peril in that forest.

_But not Naruto_, he thought with a hint of pride. The boy had done just fine. It might make for a good argument if he could prove that to the Hokage. Conclusion drawn, Kakashi allowed himself to drop into a meditative state, relying on his awareness to stay safe while he rested his eyes.

He stirred a few hours later, when the morning sun kissed their spot in the tree. Kakashi stretched and glanced at Naruto, who was uncharacteristically silent. Kakashi caught the forlorn look in his eyes and cursed under his breath. It was the first time Naruto ventured outside after spending half his life in the Forest of Death, so he was probably feeling lost. Probably. Emotions sucked.

"Hey, Naruto-kun?" he said. "Want to talk?"

Naruto raised his head to meet Kakashi's eyes, still not speaking.

"You hungry?" A shake of his head. Okay.

"How long have you been able to do that?" Kakashi tried again. Maybe he wouldn't feel out-of-place if he talked. And this way, Kakashi could get the answers he wanted, so this killed two birds with one kunai, really.

"Do what?"

Aha, progress!

"That…" How could he explain the use of Kyuubi's chakra, if Naruto didn't even know what chakra was? "…that energy you used to crush the second stone."

Naruto frowned. "Always. No…since I lived in my forest."

Kakashi blinked, stunned. Now that he knew what to look for, he could indeed verify Naruto's words: a very faint sense of Kyuubi's chakra traveling around the boy's body. He hadn't detected any chakra because he'd been looking for _human_ chakra.

Naruto had been channeling trace amounts of Kyuubi's chakra through his system for years. That was why he had superior speed, strength, and endurance that would move Maito Gai to tears. It was amazing. It would have been terrifying, except that Kakashi could see that Naruto was very much in control.

"You can control how much you use?" he asked. Naruto shrugged.

"I learned." This sullenness was new; Naruto must be really unnerved. He sucked at comforting people, damn it. An idea sparked in his mind. Naruto might be reticent among humans, but not among animals, so…he bit his thumb and made the necessary hand seals.

"Kuchiyose no jutsu!"

Pakkun poofed into existence and Kakashi hurried to catch him by his vest before he fell off the branch. The pug glared at him.

"Gee, thanks, Bakashi, for-" His nose twitched and he whirled round to stare at Naruto. "You found the pup!" he barked, surprised. Kakashi laughed, relaxing for the first time that day.

"Yes, I found him, Pakkun," he agreed. He nudged Pakkun closer to Naruto. "Go on, be friends. Naruto, this is Pakkun, leader of my dog summons pack."

Pakkun's little chest puffed up at that and he bounded over to Naruto, who looked surprised but unafraid.

"Hello there, pup," Pakkun said, giving Naruto's face a lick before making himself comfortable in the boy's lap. Then he stiffened.

"Kakashi. He's naked," Pakkun deadpanned.

"Yeah…we're working on that. One thing at a time." Kakashi ran a hand through his hair sheepishly. To Naruto, he said, "Don't be scared because he can talk, okay? He's a ninja dog, that's normal."

"I'm not scared!" Naruto shot back. He raised a hand to scratch behind Pakkun's ear, and the dog rumbled in pleasure, tail wagging. "Animals talk all the time, you know," he muttered.

Did he mean that he understood many animal languages, or that he could intuit what they meant after years of co-existence? Kakashi filed that tidbit away for later consideration. Anyway, Naruto was already cheering up as he pampered Pakkun, so Kakashi gave himself a mental pat on the back for being right.

"You up for guarding Naruto-kun?" he asked Pakkun, to which the pug snorted.

"Stupid question, Bakashi. Of course I am."

"You really need to stop using Obito's terrible mutilation of my name." The twinge of pain was a little fainter now.

"Why? It's a good one."

Sighing, Kakashi gave it up as a bad job and got up. Tanzaku Gai was a popular tourist attraction throughout the year, so they could expect heavy traffic along the usual routes soon. A prompt relocation would be prudent. Tanzaku Gai, he recalled, was ringed by forests much like Konoha, and these forests had less ninja since Tanzaku Gai's shinobi-related businesses tended to, ah, be 'active at night'. They could hide out here for a night before heading back to Konoha at their leisure.

"Let's find somewhere to spend the day, hm, Pakkun?" he said, casting about to think of a suitable place for the day. Neither gambling nor women were Kakashi's vices, so he hadn't spent much time in this area except on missions. At least he could determine there weren't any hostile chakra signatures here.

Pakkun grunted and hopped onto Kakashi's shoulder. "Lead the way. Coming, pup?" he asked Naruto, who looked wary.

"Where are we going?" Naruto asked.

"We could go hunting," Kakashi suggested, hoping that doing something familiar would put Naruto at ease. "There are only normal-sized animals around here, no giant ones, but it should still be fun."

"_Giant_ ones?" he heard Pakkun mutter in confusion. Kakashi ignored it for the time being; he'd update Pakkun when Naruto was out of earshot.

Naruto hesitated, then nodded. "Let's hunt," he said. Kakashi smiled.

"Good boy." He made sure to broadcast his movements to ruffle the boy's hair, preventing any surprise. "Let's head further away from here, there should be more animals that way." _Away from civilisation_, Kakashi thought, not that Naruto would know.

The three of them had great fun chasing rabbits and other small prey for sport until sunset, killing only what they needed for meals. Kakashi witnessed first-hand Naruto's control over Kyuubi's chakra. The boy had good control over the small amount he used to extend and retract his claws, visible through a slight darkening of his whisker marks. It allayed Kakashi's concerns somewhat. When evening fell and Naruto started to drag his feet, Kakashi proposed an early night and sicced Pakkun on guard duty. The pug grumbled but complied, so Kakashi felt confident enough to cat-nap next to Naruto, who'd already fallen asleep.

They started for Konoha at twilight. Pakkun refused to unsummon himself, choosing instead to nest on Kakashi's or Naruto's shoulders in turn. Kakashi didn't begrudge him it. Rediscovering a member of one's pack understandably made Pakkun over-protective for the moment, and five years was a long time for a dog.

The journey back was nowhere near as urgent, so their speed was closer to a casual jog across tree branches - Naruto didn't like walking on unfamiliar ground - and they spent one more night away from the Forest of Death before they neared its boundaries.

On the last leg of their journey, Kakashi started weighing on the best course of action for Naruto. He wanted to bring the boy back to Konoha with him, preen at the dissenters who'd believed him dead, but mainly to start teaching the boy, as his father had once done for Kakashi. He also knew that Naruto wasn't ready yet. The dilemma warred within him, torn between their individual wants, until Naruto made it clear what he wanted, without words.

Kakashi could see the boy fidgeting the closer they came to the Forest of Death, perking up in a way Kakashi hadn't seen since two days ago. As socially-inept as he was, he could still see how much Naruto preferred the forest. And that, Kakashi thought, sealed the deal more than anything, since the most important thing was that the boy was happy.

"Almost there, Naruto-kun," he said with a smile. Naruto didn't answer except with an extra spring in his step. All too soon, they reached the edge of the forest, and Naruto bolted off without another word.

Kakashi watched him go and tried to ignore the ache in his chest. Then he resumed his trek to Konoha.

"You're letting him go, Kakashi?" Pakkun asked, incredulous. Kakashi shrugged.

"Maa, can't force him against his will, can we?" Technically he could, if he used his ninja training, but that wasn't the point. So he let Pakkun unsummon himself and meandered to the Hokage's tower, wondering whether seven o'clock was too late for a check-in.

Ten days' training still counted as 'a few days', right?

For once, his luck held, and the Hokage was still in office working on some paperwork. Kakashi grinned and saluted the Hokage from the window.

"Kakashi," the Hokage sighed. "We have a door. And you're late."

"I got lost on the road of life," Kakashi informed him cheerfully as he slid into the room. "Has anything interesting happened while I'm gone?"

"You're still on sabbatical leave from ANBU, if that's what you're asking."

_Ouch, ouch,_ but Kakashi could see a different topic brewing behind the Hokage's eyes; he'd tossed him a different bone on purpose.

"That hurt, Hokage-sama. Don't you trust me anymore?"

"With punctuality? Hardly."

"That's fair," Kakashi conceded. The Hokage picked up his pipe and took several puffs, ignoring both Kakashi and his paperwork. Kakashi refused to rise to the bait.

"So, Kakashi. How was your training?" the Hokage said at last, exhaling. A stream of smoke tickled Kakashi's nostrils and he struggled to keep from sneezing. The Hokage had to be doing this on purpose; he knew Kakashi had a sensitive nose, that crafty old man.

"It's training," he said. "How else can it be?"

"In the Forest of Death?"

Ah, there was the segue. "That was where I said I'd be," he replied.

"And that was where you were the whole time?"

"Maa, as I said, I got lost on the road of life."

"Hmm. That might explain why the ANBU team I sent to you to captain told me you weren't anywhere to be found in Training Ground 44."

Kakashi stifled his consternation at that. "I thought I was on sabbatical leave, Hokage-sama?"

The Hokage blew another stream of smoke directly at his face. Oh yes, the leader of Konohagakure had many ways to discipline his subjects indeed. Killing their lungs with second-hand smoke seemed to be one of them.

"There was a disturbance there one evening, and I deployed shinobi to scope it out. I sent the ANBU to you since I knew you were there. Or supposed to be there, as it were."

"Maybe they need to be sent for remedial training then."

"_Kakashi._" Another puff of smoke, this time aimed at his eye.

"Or maybe I should tell you that I made a rather interesting discovery in the Forest," Kakashi said, giving in to the Hokage. He was Kakashi's superior, after all. Best not to play cat and mouse too much.

Was it wrong of him to feel so giddy at the Hokage's expense?

"Oh? And what might that be, since multiple teams failed to report anything at all?"

"Well…" Kakashi took a pre-emptive step back and activated the privacy seals in the Hokage's office, to which the Hokage narrowed his eyes. Kakashi grinned.

"…I might have found Uzumaki Naruto. He's alive, Hokage-sama."

_Naruto. Alive._

The Hokage's pipe clattered to the floor.

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...Yeah, I guess I couldn't be that cruel to the gang and leave tensions high everywhere. Old Man Hokage deserves to know too, and now he finally does! Please read and review!


	8. Chapter 7

Gosh, the worldwide situation has really taken a nosedive. Stay safe, everyone, and take care! The chapter's a little shorter this time, sorry. Still adjusting to this work-from-home thing.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

**.**

**Chapter 7**

_Score! _Kakashi thought, rather childishly, but he counted this as payback for kicking him off ANBU. It was even the _good _kind of payback. The Hokage should be happy to hear the news.

Once he got over his shock, anyway. The Hokage did so with admirable speed, considering the gravity of the news. He picked up his pipe and replaced it on his table, his eyes never leaving Kakashi.

"You're sure?" he asked at last. "It's Naruto? Not…" _Not another jinchuurki, or the Kyuubi itself?_

"I'm sure, Hokage-sama. Spent the past few days with him." Kakashi couldn't help grinning at the memory. "He's a very resilient boy."

Relief lifted the Hokage's sagged shoulders. "It's a miracle," he murmured. Kakashi could just about glimpse the joy in the Hokage's tired eyes before it was hidden away. "Where is he now?" the Hokage asked.

Kakashi shuffled his feet. "Ah, about that," he paused awkwardly, "you have to understand, Hokage-sama, that I didn't find him in the village. I found him outside the village."

"And…?"

"In the Forest of Death, in fact." He waited for the meaning of his words to sink in. Sure enough, it ignited something cold in the Hokage, who closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Kakashi clamped down on the privacy seals and fed it more chakra.

The Hokage exhaled, forcing his emotions to bleed away. "Cautious as always, Kakashi. I'm guessing the reason you activated my seals without permission is to keep this a secret?"

"As a senior ANBU captain, I do have-"

"You're on sabbatical, Hound. Do try to remember that."

Kakashi winced at the jab, nodding. "Anyway, as I was saying, I found Naruto in the Forest of Death. You must understand, it's been around five years," he prevaricated, hesitating, "and he's…not been around people, for that long."

"You mean he was forced to survive the Forest of Death alone all this time." The Hokage's voice was flat, with the slightest tremors.

Well, not really alone, but technically he didn't have any_one_…. "No human contact, I don't think," Kakashi agreed. "So he's, ah, regressed a little. He's quite behind his age group."

It was the Hokage's turn to wince. "How bad is it?"

"I could hardly understand a word he said, at first."

"Bad, then."

"He improved very quickly after a few days conversing with me," Kakashi hastened to assure him, "but, ah, that might be the best news I can give you, at the moment."

The Hokage massaged his temples, scowling. "I assume that's the reason you didn't bring him with you?"

"Yes, Hokage-sama." Kakashi hesitated, then forged ahead. "Since I'm on _sabbatical _anyway, Hokage-sama, I was thinking I might spend some with him, teach him basic people skills, stuff like that, and see if I can persuade him to come back with me, eventually." He wouldn't bank on that eventuality happening anytime soon, though.

"The day I rely on you to teach people skills is a poor day indeed," the Hokage said drily, "but I accept your proposal in principle. I suppose he isn't ready to meet new people yet?" Kakashi pretended to not hear the note of wistfulness in his voice.

"I'm not sure, Hokage-sama. He's talked about watching the two-legs - that's people to Naruto - when shinobi enter the Forest of Death, so while he may not say hello, he probably won't run away if you're just nearby." He prayed he wasn't giving the Hokage false hope.

"I would like accompany you on your next trip to the Forest, Kakashi. Please inform me in advance and I will make the necessary arrangements," the Hokage said. He looked down at his table, unseeing. Kakashi took that as his cue to leave.

"Tomorrow morning would be good, Hokage-sama." He saluted and leaped out of the window, lifting the privacy seals as he went.

Well. That went well.

There was some time before village shops closed, so Kakashi nipped over to a clothes shop for a look-see. Ninja fashion, it seemed, had gone through a huge update since his genin days, and clothes now came in various shapes, cuttings, patterns, and colours, instead of the muted dirt colours of active wartime. He felt quite lost.

Seeing as his entire wardrobe had comprised nothing but jounin and ANBU regulation uniforms for years, he had no idea what to get for off-duty gear. Or pre-genin clothes. He picked up a random shirt and puzzled over its garish orangeness in horrified fascination.

"May I help you, sir?" a salesperson asked from behind him. He dropped the shirt like it was afire and whirled round.

"I…uh," he said, "I'm looking for boy's clothes. A full set. He's around eleven years old."

The salesperson smiled and beckoned for him to follow. "You'll want to look over here," she said, heading to a different section of the shop. "If he's about to become a genin, these clothes would suit him better than civilian-wear."

How'd she guess? She might have assumed that based on his uniform, he thought, though he agreed that genin-wear would suit Naruto better. The clothes in this section were made with more sensible darker or neutral-coloured fabrics, with looser cuts to accommodate hidden weapon holsters before shinobi graduated to using storage scrolls. Kakashi let the salesperson pick out the clothes, eyeballing them to estimate their suitability for Naruto, but was otherwise content to let someone else handle the job. He ended up with two full sets of clothes, down to boxers. Kakashi thanked the gods above that Naruto was a boy; shopping for a girl would've been torture.

Much happier with his basic shopping done, Kakashi paid for his goods and left for his apartment. It had become musty in his weeks-long absence. No surprise there. He disabled his window traps and threw open his windows to be rid of the smell.

Since he didn't intend to stay long, he packed Naruto's new clothes into a spare backpack right away. Into his storage scroll went foods he intended to introduce to Naruto: some cheeses, chocolate, biscuits, sausages, bacon, eggs, and crops he couldn't have foraged in the forest. They'd hunt for their raw meat. Kakashi planned to coax Naruto to cook them this time, perhaps over a fire, since Naruto could make that without ninjutsu. It was a pity, but his chakra training would have to wait until Kakashi could figure out a solution to the Kyuubi-chakra problem. Maybe Jiraiya-sama could help when he was in town.

He stuffed some of his own clothes into a second backpack, since he intended to stay for a while this time. His current hamper of dirty clothes would just have to dry out in the sun until he came back. Satisfied, he trudged up to his room to enjoy his one night in a bed.

Morning came a little too soon for his liking. Knowing that the Sandaime Hokage wouldn't be in the best of moods, though, had him up and about before eight o'clock, and at the Hokage's office by nine. The Hokage dismissed his guards at the sight of Kakashi.

"I'd expected to see pigs flying before you start appearing on time," he said to his ANBU-turned-jounin. "It's good to know you can prioritise."

After pulling the Hokage's leg at his expense yesterday, how could he not? Besides, he understood the Hokage's agitation, considering he drowned himself in ANBU for a few more years after Naruto's disappearance. Subordinate or not, he did have more liberties than the Hokage in several areas.

They strolled past the Academy, the Hattori clan ruins, the hidden pedestrian gate in the boundary wall, and finally Konoha's forests before they reached Training Ground 44, where Kakashi paused at the gate.

"Hokage-sama," he said after a moment of hesitation, "may I suggest that I approach Naruto first without you? Feel free to linger nearby, since Naruto will be able to sense you, but I think it might be prudent for me to offer Naruto the choice of meeting you, in case he gets scared off."

Hurt flickered past the Hokage's face. "That might be wise," the Hokage sighed. "I'll be nearby once we go past the gates." True to his word, the Hokage disappeared from sight, well within sensing range. Kakashi saluted in his direction and set off to find Naruto.

He didn't need to search for long. In fact, Naruto must have sensed him, since the boy appeared less than five minutes later, eyes wide in wonder.

"You came back," he said.

"I did," Kakashi agreed, breaking into a smile. Naruto made to approach, then hung back warily.

"Someone else is here," he muttered. He sniffed and looked straight at the spot Kakashi knew concealed the Hokage. "You smell like him," he said, sounding betrayed.

_So much for warning him first._ Kakashi groaned, cursing the boy's honed senses.

"No, wait, Naruto-kun, let me explain," he said. "Yes, someone else is here, but he's not an enemy. You might know him, Naruto-kun."

That last sentence gave Naruto pause and he calmed down, though he still looked wary.

"I know him?"

"Let's see if you remember him," Kakashi said, signalling for the Hokage to approach. The Sandaime Hokage took his time walking over to the pair, his eyes riveted on the boy.

"Naruto-kun," he said hoarsely once he was within earshot. Naruto perked up at his voice, cocking his head. "Naruto-kun, do you remember me?"

"Mm…Jiji?" Naruto said. The Hokage's smile was fiercely bright as he stopped in front of the boy.

"You remember me," he said, overjoyed.

"Your voice," Naruto offered. "I remember."

"Oh, Naruto." The Hokage looked very much as though he'd like to hug the boy, though he aborted it when he noticed Naruto tensing. "Naruto-kun, I've been searching for you for so long."

The Hokage looked upon Naruto like a grandson, Kakashi realised, thunderstruck. More than a jinchuuriki. For all that Kakashi had the liberty to grieve by retreating into ANBU, the Hokage had to move on, but he had mourned, in his own way, by keeping the village up and running when he should have retired years ago. Years seemed to fall off his wrinkled face as the Hokage took in every inch of the boy.

"I see what you meant yesterday, Kakashi," he said with a resigned chuckle.

"You've been…searching for me? All this time?" Naruto interrupted, in halting words. Both Kakashi and the Hokage nodded. "Then…why wasn't I found?"

"I wish I knew, Naruto-kun," the Hokage murmured. "I am glad to see you alive." He carded a tentative hand through Naruto's matted hair. Kakashi added "Wash Naruto's Hair" to his to-do list.

The three of them stood in silence for a few moments, trying to digest the changes they brought into each other's lives. Naruto was the one to break it.

"I'm not leaving," he said, determined. "This is my home."

"Wouldn't you like to go back to the village, Naruto-kun?" the Hokage asked. Naruto shook his head and made to bolt, as though worried the Hokage might drag him back.

"This is home," he insisted. The Hokage raised both hands in a gesture of surrender and, seeing Naruto's incomprehension, followed it up by taking a few steps back, so that Naruto was beyond arm's reach.

"I have to go now, but Kakashi says he wants to stay with you." The Hokage smiled. "Could I perhaps come visit once in a while?"

Naruto watched him with fading distrust. "Okay, jiji," he said. The Hokage's smile grew wider.

"Thank you, Naruto-kun. See you then. Kakashi," he tipped his head in Kakashi's direction then made to leave at a slow stroll, leaving Naruto to stare up at Kakashi.

"He was kind to me, before," he said in wonder, and Kakashi's heart broke.

"He was, was he?" he murmured. "Then it's good you found each other again."

Naruto looked down at his feet and nodded, overwhelmed.

"So what do you want to do today, Naruto-kun?" Kakashi asked to break the mood. Naruto stayed silent. Kakashi cast around for ideas, then remembered Pakkun.

"Naruto-kun, you remember Pakkun, right? My dog?"

A nod.

"I'm going to call our whole family here, okay? They all want to meet you."

"You mean two-legs…people?" Naruto exclaimed, balking, but Kakashi had already bitten his thumb and formed handsigns. A large cloud of smoke filled the air, clearing to reveal eight ninken, seven large and one small.

"I was wondering when you'd call us, Bakashi," Pakkun said. "Guys, meet Naruto. He's that runt over there."

Naruto stood stock-still, stunned beyond words, and Kakashi worried if he'd over-stepped his time. Then the boy grinned and allowed the seven new dogs to bowl him over and shower him with licks and kisses, patting as many as he could get his hands on.

"So this here's Bull, and Urushi, and Shiba, Bisuke, Akino - ease off, you idiots, you're suffocating him! - Uhei and Guruko. Oh, c'mon, you guys," Pakkun grumbled. "You'd think they've never seen a boy before."

"But he's pack!" Bisuke yelped happily, as if that solved everything. A warm feeling spread through Kakashi. _Pack, indeed_.

Giggling, Naruto allowed himself to be pulled this way and that like a rag doll, covered in dog drool. They'd wrestled their way away from the dirt path and into the woods before Naruto yipped, play-bowed, and pounced onto the nearest ninken - Bull - snarling and growling as the others tried to yank him off the large, calm bulldog. Pakkun sighed in disgust and leaped onto Kakashi's shoulder, safe from the fray.

"Is this where I tell you that Naruto's making sounds normal dogs can understand?" Pakkun said near his ear. "It doesn't matter since they're ninken and can understand human language, of course, but you might like to know."

Kakashi hummed his acknowledgement, eyeing the dog-pile. His pack was whole at last, and he couldn't be happier.

.

Okay here's a feel-good chapter to make up for the cliffie from before! As usual, please read and review, and remember to stay safe!


	9. Chapter 8

My country announced an extension of a Movement Control Order earlier this week. I guess this means seeing nothing but my room for a fortnight more from today! I hope I don't go mad from staring at the same four walls so much.

On the bright side, I managed to squeeze a longer chapter! Must be all that time I saved from commuting.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

.

**Chapter 8**

Kakashi let the pack brawl themselves to exhaustion, content to follow a short distance away until, one by one, his dogs peeled away from their game to pant happily on the ground. To his amusement, Naruto was the last one standing, though not for long - Bull yanked him by the arm and they both went down together, amid much squealing from the boy. Then the eight of them sprawled out on the grass, filling the air with happy dog sounds.

"Okay, guys, time to go," he said, clapping his hands. His declaration was met with groans and whines.

"But Kakashi, we just met him!"

"Aww, I wanted to play some more…."

"I'll summon you guys again," Kakashi promised. "We can hunt with Naruto-kun next time, if you can be quiet at it." Yes, Naruto calling him noisy still rankled, and he was being petty, he knew. He wondered how he'd stack up against his ninken.

With final grumbles, his ninken acquiesced, disappearing in puffs of smoke until only Pakkun was left on his shoulder.

"You'll be all right for the night, kiddo?" he asked Kakashi. Kakashi gave him a who-do-you-think-I-am look. "I know, I know, just checking." Then he poofed away.

If Naruto noticed the disappearance of the ninken, he didn't react, already aware that they could do that after seeing Pakkun do it the day before. He turned his head towards Kakashi with a wide grin.

"Your family…is nice," he panted, blue eyes sparkling.

Kakashi blinked. _Blue_ eyes?

Yes, Naruto's eyes were definitely blue at the moment, a clear, azure blue that reminded Kakashi very much of his late sensei. There was no trace at all of the Kyuubi's chakra, which meant that Naruto's red eyes were probably a physical manifestation of its powers. That was good to know.

He wondered how much Naruto would resemble his father, once he grew up.

Naruto's stomach chose that moment to release a low growl, and Kakashi laughed.

"Time to eat, kiddo," he said, retrieving his storage scroll.

* * *

Naruto took to foods that looked more natural faster than processed ones. That meant the sausages, bacon, and vegetables, while the cheese was abandoned after a curious sniff. Kakashi encouraged him to try each of the new foods. He ate all of them raw this time, but Kakashi planned to introduce him to cooked food next. For now, though, both of them lay on their backs after a good meal, enjoying their day. Naruto fell asleep a short while later.

Somehow, Naruto wasn't bothered by the noonday sun roasting him alive. Kakashi scuttled under the shade of a tree to avoid melting in his clothes, but Naruto just blinked sleepily and resumed his slumber. Kakashi chalked it up to another of his eccentricities and settled down to read Icha Icha until evening fell.

Naruto woke at sunset, like on their first day meeting, and greeted Kakashi with a wide grin.

"Hunt?" he said while stretching.

"What do you want to hunt tonight?"

"Umm. Deer," he said. Kakashi raised an eyebrow. Deer were fast and difficult to capture due to their zig-zag escape patterns. The use of weapons made a difference, of course, but Naruto only used his body. It would be interesting to see how the hunt turned out.

…_Or not, _Kakashi amended, torn between awe and speechlessness at how Naruto went about it. No chasing was involved! Naruto simply walked up to a herd of deer, announced his presence, and lay down next to a young buck, hidden from the herd, while they settled down for the night…and when they were all asleep, he struck. That was it. The entire herd bolted, and Naruto was left lying in the grass waiting for them to leave, one hand clamped on the dead buck's neck.

Kakashi couldn't have planned a better weaponless execution if he tried.

Naruto got up a few minutes after the clearing fell silent, satisfied with his kill. The buck was small enough for him to sling over one shoulder, its legs trailing on the ground as Naruto walked, Kakashi guessed, to his family's home. Kakashi expected him to leave the buck somewhere nearby, as usual, but Naruto did not walk away once he dropped the buck. Instead, he hesitated and looked straight at Kakashi. His eyes bled red.

"Stay here," he commanded. Then he disappeared behind some trees. Shrugging, Kakashi leaned against a tree to wait.

It didn't take long at all for Naruto to reappear, nervous, but grinning. He looked at Kakashi and yipped at something behind him. All of a sudden, three shadows leaped out of what Kakashi realised was a shallow dip. They approached Kakashi hesitantly. He crouched down to make himself appear less threatening - then the moon appeared, revealing Naruto's family.

Kakashi could have face-palmed. Fox-cubs. Of course. The jinchuuriki of the nine-tailed fox, raised by a family of foxes…it was sheer irony that the symbol of the boy's suffering was the very one that saved his life.

Naruto's anxious shuffling caught his attention, and he spared Naruto a smile. The boy relaxed.

"My family," he proclaimed. He chattered a bit with the three fox-cubs, who came within touching distance and started sniffing anything within reach. One tried to bite Kakashi's fingers. He snatched his hand back, chuckling, while Naruto watched over them like a proud brother. Or like Kakashi over his pack this morning. Kakashi noted the parallels with amusement.

"I thought you said there were nine of you?" Kakashi asked, recalling their first meal together.

"Yeah. Four more inde-independent," Naruto said, struggling with the big word, "and papa and mama fox. Nine."

Such an ironic number, too, Kakashi thought. Nine foxes for the Kyuubi jinchuuriki.

"So, I have dogs, and you have foxes," Kakashi joked, to which Naruto grinned and nodded.

"Family," he said. Turning to the three juveniles, he chittered and pointed out the dead deer, not far away. The fox cubs bounded over and proceeded to drag the carcass down to their den with some difficulty. Naruto watched them go wistfully.

"Do you want to go with them?" Kakashi asked.

"No, no. They're okay." With one last look, Naruto shook his head and turned away. "Let's go?"

"Okay, Naruto-kun. Let's go."

* * *

It was lucky that Naruto maintained excellent motor skills despite his animalistic life. Kakashi's attempts at teaching him to eat processed food was still a work in progress. Cooked food was a much easier attempt, coaxed in part by the enhanced smell when it was cooking, and the familiar texture of meat. So Kakashi moved on to teaching Naruto how to start a fire the civilian way.

He taught Naruto how to choose the right spot, away from low branches or bushes; how to clear the ground around his intended fire pit; how to ring his pit with rocks; how to rig a spit with branches; how to choose firewood, and of course, a few ways to ignite the fire. Naruto was having more luck with an improvised flint and steel; his enthusiasm tended to break the logs he used for friction, much to Kakashi's chagrin. In time, when Naruto could learn to access his human chakra, Kakashi looked forward to teaching him the art of fire-starting the shinobi way.

Clothes, too, enjoyed a bit of progress. After a lot of cajoling and negotiating, Naruto conceded to wear shorts - no boxers or briefs - and a belt, which he kept unfastened so that he could use it as a whip. _Baby steps_, Kakashi reminded himself. He'd taught Naruto how to bathe in the river, so the boy was more presentable now, for all that he got scruffy again faster than any of Kakashi's ninken. He'd work on it until Naruto would bathe without his reminders.

He'd also gotten Naruto started on his kata, skipping the strength and endurance training Academy students were put through since he figured Naruto's abilities outstripped them by far. Naruto may not be able to use ninjutsu or genjutsu, but taijutsu was fair game. He would be an absolute powerhouse, too. Kakashi was beyond proud.

In their down-time, they enjoyed chatting about anything and everything. Kakashi slipped in trivia about Konoha and civilised society, though he had no idea if Naruto caught on, or if he understood the lesson in disguise. He certainly displayed no curiosity to explore the village. That was fine. Kakashi would work on it. Naruto's vocabulary and clarity of speech had improved well enough to please him.

Before they knew it, weeks had passed, and Kakashi knew that, sabbatical leave or not, he was overdue for a progress report. Konoha's messenger birds had flown over him twice already. But he ran into an unexpected problem: Naruto. The boy clung to him like a barnacle and refused to let go.

"Don't go, Kakashi," he beseeched. Kakashi almost gave in on the spot.

"I have to, Naruto-kun. Remember Sandaime Hokage-sama? The old man you met that day?" Naruto nodded. "He's calling me now, so I must go. I'll come back to you after that, okay?"

"Why?" Was Naruto _pouting_? That was just too cute.

"He's my boss. My alpha," Kakashi rephrased at Naruto's incomprehension. Naruto grumbled but subsided after that.

"Come back soon," Naruto said. He looked so desolate that Kakashi took pity on him.

"Tell you what. I'm going to need your help while I'm gone. Are you up for it?"

"Help with what?" Yes, he was definitely pouting now. Kakashi grinned and bit his thumb. All eight of his ninken poofed into existence.

"Naruto!" they yelped, all except Pakkun, who rolled his eyes and ambled over to Kakashi.

"Dogs," Pakkun sighed. Kakashi stifled a laugh.

"You're a dog too, you know," he reminded Pakkun. To Naruto, he said, "I'm leaving my pack in your care while I'm gone. Take care of them, okay? You can go hunting together."

"Okay, Kakashi!" Naruto squealed, pitching his voice to rise above the chaos of barks and growls. His eyes were sparkling, so Kakashi took that as his cue to leave.

"The Hokage summoned me. I'll go to Konoha and come back after debriefing him. Take care of the pack," he told Pakkun.

"What do you take me for?" Pakkun grumbled, but he sat down to watch his pack play, just the same. Kakashi ruffled Pakkun's head and shunshined away.

* * *

"...Come again, Hokage-sama? I must have misheard you."

"You know you didn't, Hatake-jounin."

Kakashi winced, knowing that the formal address meant a formal occasion he didn't want. "I hadn't realised it was that time again," he said, rather feebly. The New Year, it seemed, had come and gone while he was in the forest, and it was once again time to spend a useless day testing three pre-genin brats who would fail his test, as always. He wasn't looking forward to it.

The Hokage snorted. "Yes, well. It was 'that time' yesterday, in fact. Thank you for ignoring our messenger birds."

"So…does that mean they've failed?" He refused to feel guilty for being so hopeful.

"On the contrary, Hatake-jounin, it means that unless you round them up and test them by noon, which is when the other jounin will give their assessment reports, your team will get an _automatic pass_. Is that understood?"

A trio of bratty genin to babysit till chuunin-hood? Kakashi shivered. There was a reason he kept failing those Academy hopefuls, and it wasn't just because they all failed his bell test. He was a seasoned ANBU, used to training recruits that were already competent diamonds in the rough, as it were - not total greenhorns!

"Crystal-clear, Hokage-sama," he said. "May I have their files?"

The Hokage pushed a set of files over to him. "You have three hours till noon."

_And the three brats just had to be living on opposite sides of the village,_ Kakashi realised once he'd flipped through the files. _Great, just great_.

One way or another, he wouldn't be saddled with three Academy genin. Absolutely not.

* * *

They failed the bell test, of course, so Kakashi had no qualms reporting as such at noon, on the dot, out of pettiness at the Hokage. No one batted an eyelid at his announcement.

Team 8 by Yuuhi Kurenai and Team 10 by Sarutobi Asuma passed. Both were on their first runs as jounin sensei hopefuls and seemed excited at the prospect of not entering jounin rotation. Kakashi wondered why. He watched the other jounin file out and made to follow, until the Hokage stopped him.

"Stay back, Hatake-jounin. I have something to discuss with you."

Still Hatake-jounin, not Kakashi? Kakashi thought he'd dispelled the need for formality already. He nodded and waited to the side as the Hokage continued to congratulate and brief the two new jounin sensei before dismissing them both. The Hokage sat down on his chair and sucked on his pipe.

"So, Hatake-jounin."

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"Did you notice the names of the Academy graduates you were testing today?"

"Well, yes, but…."

The Hokage's eyebrow twitched. "I'm certain you understand the implications of failing Uchiha Sasuke at a time like this."

He did, but that didn't mean he wanted any part in this. It was why he was in ANBU, in the shadows, and not a normal jounin in broad daylight. He'd save his limited political will for inter-village interactions, thank you very much.

Kakashi's shoulders slumped. "They didn't have what I was looking for, Hokage-sama."

"And yet surely you, based on past experience, should know that teamwork can be fostered during training. You better not be failing them just to coast on existing friendships, Hatake-jounin, because otherwise the Ino-Shika-Chou trio can well be shuffled to you."

"That's quite all right, Hokage-sama," Kakashi said hastily. "The fact remains, though, that I've officially failed the team. They can always try again next time."

The Hokage puffed on his infernal pipe again. "I thought, perhaps, that you'd might want to prevent a second coming of Uchiha Itachi. Perhaps I was wrong."

That stunned him, if nothing else. "Has ROOT approached Sasuke-kun?" Kakashi asked, mind churning. His recreational investigations hadn't revealed anything like that, but he'd spent a while away from the village now, so that might have changed.

"Not to my knowledge." The Hokage shuffled the Academy students' profiles until he landed on Sasuke's page. "Sasuke-kun is quite fixated on his brother. I had hoped that new friendships might distract him from that, and give him a new perspective."

Kakashi hummed and said nothing. The Hokage gave him a pointed look.

"And of course, Uchiha Sasuke is the last Uchiha with the potential to unlock the Sharingan. All remaining Uchiha have had their Sharingan sealed so they cannot teach him. But you can."

"With all due respect, Hokage-sama, while I understand the situation at hand, I have no wish to extend my forced sabbatical leave for years until Uchiha becomes chuunin." Unmentioned was his terror at raising a greenhorn.

"Must you always be so difficult, Kakashi?" the Hokage sighed. "The council knows this, and that's why they've come up with a compromise. Take on Uchiha Sasuke as your apprentice, and your leave order will be rescinded with immediate effect."

Kakashi stared at the Hokage. "You want me to drag a rookie genin on ANBU missions," he deadpanned.

"Of course not." '_You idiot'_ went unsaid. "We expect you to leave instructions for him when you're out on missions. The Uchiha are still ninja; they can take over when you're away, so long as you train the boy in his bloodline limit."

The offer was tempting. Time spent with Naruto had dulled the itch to return to ANBU, but it was still there, a thirst for adrenaline left unquenched. It was a dangerous drug. Speaking of which….

"Naruto-kun," Kakashi said, hoping to plead his case. "He's improving, but not enough to reintegrate with society yet. I don't want him to regress."

Silence. He knew he was hitting a sensitive spot for the Hokage, so he kept mum. The Hokage closed his eyes behind steepled fingers.

"The needs of many comes before the needs of one," he murmured.

No, he refused to accept it. Refused to accept that, after years of searching, he would lose Naruto again, this time to the machinations of the council who didn't even know Naruto was alive. Kakashi's mind raced to find loopholes.

"You said I'd have to take Uchiha as an apprentice. Just one genin." The Hokage inclined his head.

"And as a master instead of a jounin-sensei, I have greater control over my training methods, so long as it benefits the apprentice," he continued.

"This is not an invitation to abandon Uchiha Sasuke at the first opportunity, Kakashi."

"I know that," Kakashi said. "So, does this mean that I can train him any way and anywhere I want?"

"As long as he's being taught about shinobi skills and the Sharingan when it manifests, yes."

"Great, that's settled then!" Kakashi eye-smiled at the Hokage, who grew suspicious. "I'll just find a set of apprenticeship forms for Uchiha and we'll be done, hm? Oh, and ANBU reinstatement forms, too." He couldn't hide his glee at that.

"They're ready at the missions counter," the Hokage said. "I trust you'll do well by the boys?"

_Boys_, in plural. Kakashi could admire how the Hokage came to be called 'the Professor', based on the sheer speed at which he'd deduced Kakashi's plan from almost zero hints.

"I will, Hokage-sama. Who knows, it might do them some good," Kakashi said, affirming the Hokage's guess. Mirth flitted past the old man's face.

"Go then," he said, dismissing Kakashi. Kakashi saluted and left.

The faster he grabbed Uchiha Sasuke, the faster he could return to Naruto.

The poor Uchiha wouldn't know what hit him.

.

Aaand one more member of Team Seven makes their appearance! Yep, poor Sasuke won't know what hit him. Let's see if Kakashi can smack his broodiness out of him.

Thanks for all the reviews, follows, and favourites, and as always please read and review!

Above all, stay safe, all of you. How are you faring during this pandemic?


	10. Chapter 9

Clearly, the "time saved" from commuting has given work-related stuff the idea that 9-6, Monday to Friday is a non-existent concept. Ah well.

By the way, thanks to "Guest" for pointing out that a certain b-word has...insinuations. It doesn't have such a meaning in my country, or my country just doesn't use that word I guess, since English is not our primary language here. I've changed that word even though it's technically just an author's note. Yikes. My apologies.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

.

**Chapter 9**

Uchiha Mikoto appeared at the door, and Kakashi couldn't quite hide his surprise at the sight. He kept his eyes trained on her face when he nodded in greeting.

"Hatake-san," Mikoto said, her voice soft and tired despite her smile. The years had not been kind to her. Bereft of her eldest son and husband, stuck on the career ladder due to her youngest child, and left to pick up the pieces of the Uchiha clan, Uchiha Mikoto had been thrust, without warning, into an unwanted, unappreciated position, and it had taken its toll. And….

Mikoto noticed his eyes wandering further down. Her smile broke just a touch. A gentle hand cupped the slight swell of her belly, which stretched her apron smooth around an otherwise loose garment.

"It might not survive," she murmured. The corners of her mouth trembled. "Itachi and Sasuke…they were rainbow babies, after many failed tries. So you and the council needn't worry too much."

He wasn't worried, not really, beyond a distant pity for Kushina-san's former teammate. The fate of the Uchiha clan didn't concern him. It looked like the Uchiha were taking advantage of the loophole the Sandaime left them in order to grow. Literally.

What should he say in situations like these again? "Ah, congratulations?" he fumbled, blushing. Mikoto chuckled.

"Thank you, Hatake-san," she said. "I doubt you're here for a social call, but would you like some tea?"

"No, thank you, Uchiha-san-" if Mikoto took umbrage at the lower honorific, she did not react "-I'm actually here for Uchiha Sasuke. He is to be my apprentice, if he would sign the form."

A sharp breath. "You are ANBU, Hatake-san."

Ah, how did she know that? Kakashi would have to find that little bird and teach it better manners.

"That is a serious accusation to make, Uchiha-san," he pointed out. She paled at the word 'accusation', just as Kakashi thought she would.

"Are you taking my son away?"

"An apprenticeship, as aforementioned. Sasuke-kun may be trained by your clansmen whenever I am called for duty."

_Your_ clansmen, not _his_. Kakashi wished there was a more tactful way of phrasing it. Mikoto, raised all her life as a noblewoman first and shinobi second, would notice the nuance in a heartbeat. As it was, she sighed, looking away.

"Sandaime Hokage-sama is merciful," she said, so soft that he almost missed it. "Yes, I suppose this is for the best. At least Sasuke can have something he can call his."

Kakashi fidgeted, not knowing what to say.

"All these…attempts," she said, shifting her hand so that Kakashi's attention returned to her middle, "Sasuke hasn't been taking them well. Perhaps a new environment would do him good."

"Are you all right?" Kakashi asked, out of a loss for words.

Mikoto gave him a bitter smile. "We are alive, and I have my son. We will make do."

He'd wondered, sometimes, whether he could have tried harder to help Weasel, tried to consider the Uchiha more than an afterthought in his ROOT investigations, instead of second to Naruto. Weasel had let things slip, once. Kakashi had noticed his cry for help.

He was, as usual, a little too late.

He didn't have the emotional capacity to care and worry about everyone, not like Minato-sensei or Kushina-san. But he had enough feelings to spare for the living reminders of his failures.

"If there is anything I can do for you that is within my power," he said, "please say so."

Mikoto bowed her head, hiding her eyes, and Kakashi panicked. He had the sympathy limit of a teacup, damn it! Fortunately, Mikoto was made of sterner stuff; her eyes were clear when she looked up again.

"Thank you, Hatake-san. Sasuke-kun is upstairs; I'll fetch him for you."

Kakashi took a breath of relief when she left. Sasuke, he hoped, would be easier to deal with than his mother, since he was a boy.

Said boy arrived at the door with a scowl and glare. It looked like this morning's exam still rankled. His mother followed a moment later, inconvenienced by her condition.

"Hatake-san, this is Sasuke-kun. Sasuke-kun, Hokage-sama has allowed you to be apprenticed to Hatake-san, who's one of Konoha's top shinobi."

"Hn," Sasuke grunted. "When do I leave?"

"Once you sign the form and pack your bags," Mikoto said. Kakashi tried hard to ignore the hurt swimming in her eyes. "Hatake-san, will you be returning him in time for dinner?"

Kakashi forced his mouth to work. "I'm afraid not, Uchiha-san. We're leaving on a training trip outside the village. I will send a message ahead of our return."

"Thank you, Hatake-san, that is most appreciated." She watched her son stomp upstairs.

"Uchiha-san," Kakashi blurted. She turned to look at him, surprised. "I will take care of him," he said. At that, she smiled and tipped her head, shifting to the side with grace when her son thundered past her. She still moved like a shinobi, after all these years. He could see where Weasel got his skill.

The talent was less obvious in his little brother, who was shaping up to be the worst brat from Kakashi's nightmares. Sighing, he schooled his features to bid Mikoto goodbye - Sasuke didn't bother - before he led them both to the Hokage Tower to deposit their signed forms. The day was growing late, and he wanted to get back to Naruto before nightfall.

"Where are we going?" the boy deigned to ask at last.

"Hm. I thought you'd never ask," Kakashi mused. "We're going to train, of course. I trust you packed for a long trip?"

The boy grunted. Kakashi took that to be a 'yes'. No matter, they were almost there and Kakashi was not turning back, regardless of his answer.

The boy stopped short of entering the Forest of Death. The gate creaked in warning as Sasuke stared at Kakashi.

"Things are going to escape if you leave the gate open like that," Kakashi remarked. That made Sasuke step in and shut the gate out of reflex.

"Where are we?" he asked, aware for the first time that he had no idea what he was getting into. Kakashi rubbed his hands together in glee.

"Why, the Forest of Death of course. Welcome to your training ground."

* * *

"First things first," Kakashi-sensei announced brightly. "We'll have to introduce you to the inhabitants of the Forest. Be careful!"

Sasuke glared him. "You're joking."

"No, I'm not, actually. But feel free to test it."

Yeah, right. Sasuke hadn't gotten to the top of his class by being stupid. He looked around, noting the larger-than-usual trees, which gave off more chakra than the chakra-marked trees that led inbound Konoha shinobi back to the village. Everything here had a giant pattern on it, except maybe the grass under his shoes. Scowling, Sasuke resorted to trudging behind Kakashi-sensei and wondering about his fate.

His day had been awful. First he'd been left on tenterhooks when his jounin sensei failed to arrive yesterday. Said jounin snatched him from his home in the morning, without any warning, and squished him with his worst fangirl under one arm and another boy under the second until they were dumped, without fanfare, on a training field. He then pitted them against each other for two bells, which they failed to take. Sasuke was still smarting about it in his room when his mother came up to tell him about his apprenticeship with the very same man, a few hours later.

Now, though, he was torn between considering it a privilege or torture. _Introduce me to the inhabitants of the Forest? Is he expecting me to talk to animals?_

Kakashi-sensei whistled. The ground started to rumble and Sasuke leaped into a tree, startled. The rumbling continued to grow in intensity until the ground in front of Kakashi-sensei broke, spitting out eight dogs and one boy.

"Kakashi! You're back!" the dogs barked. The boy whipped round to stare at Sasuke.

"Another one," he groaned. "Kakashi, who's this?"

"Ah, Naruto, that's Uchiha Sasuke. Sasuke-kun, come down and say hi."

Sasuke dropped to the ground, where he was immediately accosted by seven large ninken. The smallest stayed away.

"Now, now, play nice, doggies. He's my cute little student." To Sasuke, he said, "Introduce yourself to Naruto-kun. And get permission to stay here."

"From the _runt_?"

Kakashi-sensei bit back a sigh. "It's a good thing that's not yet in his lexicon…yes, from him. This is his forest. Isn't that right, Naruto-kun?"

"Yes!" Naruto's face soured. "Another one, Kakashi? It's annoying."

Sasuke glared at the whiskered boy. It wasn't like he'd asked to be here!

"Now, now, play nice. I'm supposed to train Sasuke-kun here up to be a big, strong, shinobi, so I thought I could train you both together and spend more time with you!"

Sasuke had a sinking feeling that he meant the latter more than the former.

"Sasuke-kun?" Kakashi-sensei's voice held a note of warning he didn't dare to ignore. Scowling, he turned to face Naruto, glaring daggers.

"I am Uchiha Sasuke," he said sullenly. Kakashi-sensei signaled for him to continue. "Would you…let me stay here?" Kami-sama, that was awkward, and why was Kakashi-sensei making him do this anyway!

The little shrimp shrugged. "Sure. Forest is big. Be careful."

Again with the 'be careful'. It was one thing to be told that by Kakashi-sensei, who was, despite his annoying traits, a senior shinobi and jounin. Hearing the same from a boy shorter than him sucked. Irked, Sasuke fell to his default answer. "Hn."

"This is just peachy," Kakashi-sensei muttered under his breath.

Yep, that summed up his feelings, too.

The eight ninken crowded around Kakashi-sensei, awaiting orders. He waved them off to play with Naruto while he whisked Sasuke further away.

"So you've met Naruto-kun," Kakashi-sensei said. They stopped in the middle of nowhere - everywhere looked the same to Sasuke - and Kakashi-sensei kept a firm grip on Sasuke's shoulders.

"How old is he anyway?" Sasuke said, scowling. "He looks to be around my age."

"You're slightly older than him, actually." That mollified Sasuke a little.

"Now, Sasuke-kun, I believe we need to have a little chat," Kakashi-sensei said. His grip remained firm.

"This is the Forest of Death, which, as you might guess from the name, is a dangerous place," Kakashi-sensei continued. "Many things can kill you, of course, like the giant slugs, giant tigers, giant slugs, giant Venus traps…get the drift?"

"...Yes."

"So! That said, there is one more even more dangerous thing in this forest." With that, a blast of killer intent hit him point-blank, seeking his worst fears, his insecurities, digging them all up and making him want to die, die, _die_-

Sasuke fell to his knees, choking.

"Me," Kakashi said quietly. "Hurt Naruto, or breathe a word about Naruto to _anyone at all_, and the Forest of Death will be the least of your worries. Do you understand?" Sasuke hurried to nod.

"A verbal answer, genin."

"Yes," Sasuke croaked, still shaking. This was a jounin's power. He didn't know how strong it was compared to Itachi's, but it was beyond his ken. For now. Sasuke swallowed hard. The haze of killer intent faded and Kakashi bent down to smile at him.

"Good boy," he said, "I think we'll get along just fine."

_I think I'm going to die._

.

Oops. Poor Sasuke finds out kinda early that he's not the centre of the universe, I guess. I always found it kinda sad that Sasuke and Naruto's friendship had to develop that way. Here's to an infinite number of retries a la fanfiction!

Thanks for all the reviews, follows, and favourites, and as always please read and review!


	11. Chapter 10

Quarantine extended. Yikes. Stay safe, please, everyone, and stay at home as much as you can.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

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**Chapter 10**

Kakashi could tell that Naruto was annoyed over his failed hunting session last night. To be fair, the boy was used to a very high success rate - Kakashi had yet to see him fail - so having nothing to show for his efforts must be appalling. And he knew that Naruto blamed him for bringing the newbie along.

Ah, Sasuke. Kakashi would've wept if he could. He was the epitome of the worst greenhorns Kakashi could think of: sulky, sullen, stubborn, useless, the whole nine yards. His idea of hunting was Naruto's equivalent of crashing about in the trees. In other words, pathetic.

The boy didn't seem to think so, since he wasn't up at the crack of dawn to train. Oh wait, that might be just him. Did normal genin train all day long? He'd have to ask Gai.

For now, though, he'd best haul his ass lest Naruto failed his hunt again tonight. Naruto might kill him. Or Sasuke.

To negate both outcomes, Kakashi prepared a weak suiton jutsu and doused Sasuke whole.

"What - where-" Sasuke spluttered awake, eyes wide with shock. It turned into a glare when he noticed Kakashi's hands, still forming a hand-sign. Kakashi grinned.

"Rise and shine, kiddo. It's time to train."

* * *

The brat's stamina was not bad, for a fresh genin. His chakra was considerable too. Kakashi hummed to himself as Sasuke ran his umpteenth lap along the river, cursing all the way. Kakashi had chosen the muddiest part for him to run in. Naruto was napping nearby. He'd give Naruto a few more hours, then he'd drag both boys to practice kata together.

He stopped Sasuke before the boy keeled over with exhaustion, though the stubborn brat didn't say anything. He hoped the brat knew his own limits. Shaking his head, Kakashi let him be and sought shade to read Icha Icha while the boy recovered.

Luckily, Sasuke seemed disinclined to break the silence, so Kakashi had enjoyed reading half his book by the time Naruto stirred. He shot a sour look at the dark-haired newcomer.

"Good morning, Kakashi," he said.

"Good morning," he replied, pleased. Naruto was learning manners quite well. "Ready to train?"

"Weird moves again?"

"Those 'weird moves' are kata, Naruto-kun, and they're meant to help your taijutsu. You don't want to karate chop your kills every time, do you?"

"I know, I know," Naruto grumbled. "Start now?"

"Sure. Sasuke-kun," Kakashi called, "time to continue."

The boy shuffled to his feet, wincing. He'd feel worse tomorrow. Kakashi herded Naruto closer to Sasuke and started him on warm-ups.

"Okay, Naruto-kun. Sasuke-kun has been practising kata for years at the Academy, so he might perform better than you." That arrogant tilt of his head had just earned him another dunking tomorrow morning…. "Don't worry about it. You can watch him for pointers if I'm not around, okay?"

Sasuke preened. Kakashi resisted the urge to swat the boy's head; he'd reserve that for his first slip-up. Kakashi's standards of perfection were very, very high.

"Ready? Start."

Both boys started going through kata, but it wasn't long before Naruto stopped.

"Kakashi," he said, confused. "I don't understand. His moves are different."

"It's Sasuke-_kun_, you idiot, don't be rude," Sasuke hissed. Kakashi whapped him on the head for that.

"Hm? Let's try again and I'll watch."

Sulking, both boys did as they were told, completing the whole warm-up sequence for his review. Sure enough, Sasuke's moves were different from Naruto's, more basic and generalised. Kakashi face-palmed.

"Of course," he sighed. "I'm sorry, Naruto. I taught you a different version. It looks like I'll have to train you two separately after all."

He hoped Sasuke wouldn't get jealous at Naruto's ANBU-level training. Teaching a genin was _hard_.

He shook his head and created a kage bunshin. There, now there were two of him, one for each boy. Naruto's eyes were as wide as saucers. Sasuke, on the other hand, looked unimpressed. He probably hadn't realised its distinction from the normal bunshin.

"Naruto, I'll go with you, and my bunshin will stay with Sasuke-kun," he said, deciding he'd had enough of the Uchiha for one morning. He shooed Naruto a short distance away from Sasuke and restarted his personal training for the boy, who seemed much happier to treat training as a game with Sasuke out of the picture. He was improving at it though, so Kakashi let him treat it however he liked.

Sasuke, of course, tired much faster than Naruto. He'd been awakened earlier, trained earlier, and he had less stamina than the blond jinchuuriki. He dropped to the ground, legs shaking, not long after lunch, slick with sweat.

"Looks like that's your limit," Kakashi remarked, evaluating him for injuries. "You'll be able to recognise it next time and stop before you reach this point. You'll regret it tomorrow."

"Screw you," Sasuke growled. A spike of killing intent cowed him into silence.

"Watch your mouth, Sasuke-chan," Kakashi said, smiling. "Otherwise, I've been told that soap's a good way to keep things clean."

At least the boy had enough sense to not reply. Kakashi's bunshin sat with him anyway until mid-afternoon, just in case, and dispelled itself only when Naruto came back with the original for his nap. Kakashi blinked and stared at Sasuke.

"You have quite the potty mouth, don't you?" he said. Sasuke stopped gaping and turned away. That left him with nothing to do as Naruto and Kakashi napped under a tree for the evening. He huffed.

Well, he could always practice his hand signs.

Sasuke began practising a very specific set of hand signs, trying to recall the correct sequence. When he was confident he got it right, he grinned in satisfaction and channeled chakra into his next round, expecting a clone.

His chakra reserves plummeted. Sasuke dropped face-first on the grass, dizzy, faint, and cold. The world blacked out. He felt someone forcing something into his mouth then massaging his throat to get it down, though he couldn't imagine who it was. His head was spinning.

Slowly, the world came back into focus, revealing an exasperated Kakashi with an open box of soldier pills on the floor.

"Do you make it a habit to practise unknown jutsu before knowing its chakra cost?" he asked in frustration. "Kami-sama, I had no idea genin could be this dense." Sasuke made to shake his head but aborted the motion when it made everything spin again.

"Don't move." Kakashi sighed. "Congratulations on your first case of severe chakra exhaustion. You'll be out of commission for a few days. Maybe this will teach you to be more careful with ninjutsu."

Sasuke fainted before he could reply.

* * *

Kakashi set Sasuke high up in a tree for the night and cautioned him against sudden movements.

"I haven't secured you to the branch, so if you move around too much, you'll fall," he said. "Well, we're going hunting now, so see you, Sasuke-chan!"

Sasuke glared at Kakashi's two-fingered salute, but Kakashi ignored it and leaped away with Naruto, who was raring to hunt alongside Kakashi's ninken. Then silence became his only friend. Sasuke dozed, still floored by chakra exhaustion, waking up whenever he twitched for fear of falling down.

It was almost dawn by the time something startled him awake. Naruto perched at his feet, ready to catch him in case he fell, red eyes glowing in the moonlight. The boy cocked his head. Before Sasuke could clear his throat to talk, Naruto had extended a hand to him, offering a furry carcass.

"For you," he said.

He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. In the end, he accepted the bloody squirrel and nodded his thanks. Naruto grinned. And that was that.

* * *

Thankfully, subsequent days drifted by a lot smoother than the first, helped in part by Sasuke's limited mobility. He'd had humble pie forced down his throat for the first time in years and he hadn't liked it one bit. Kakashi had figured out how to handle his little genin by then.

He even remembered to return Sasuke to the village once a week, with strict instructions to be back after dinner. Wasn't he a good sensei?

His focus, however, had switched from taijutsu to chakra control, at least for Sasuke. That brat just couldn't be trusted yet, so Kakashi would drill intimate knowledge of his own body's limits into his head before he taught Sasuke any ninjutsu. Tree-walking was a slow affair, delayed in part by Naruto's dismay that he couldn't do it too. He'd pleaded with Kakashi, puppy-dog eyes in full force - and wasn't that difficult to deny! - but Kakashi stood firm. The Kyuubi's chakra was an unknown factor and he dared not take chances.

"You need to produce blue chakra before you can try, Naruto-kun," he explained, unable to mention the Kyuubi with Sasuke around. "And don't try without my supervision!"

Naruto had raged then, his first tantrum since Kakashi got to know him, but in the end he agreed, coaxed by the promise of being taught trapping techniques. It was way more practical than climbing trees with one's feet. Kakashi breathed a sigh of relief.

He found that watered-down ANBU training techniques worked well enough for Sasuke - at least, he hoped the boy didn't realise he was stumbling along. Or was it the ANBU techniques that were cranked up? Anyway, 'learning by doing' became Kakashi's motto, as Sasuke found out the hard way.

Like when he'd gone hungry every night for as long as he disturbed Naruto's hunt (this was a work in progress).

Or like when he collapsed due to chakra exhaustion until he knew when to stop.

Or like when he'd obtained his Sharingan, activated under extreme duress when Kakashi decided to kick him off a treetop, follow him down with a kunai aimed at his eyes, and try to slash his face in half.

…Yeah. 'Learning by doing' was best. It made the fruits of their labour all the sweeter. He could recall with fondness the outcome of his Sharingan training for both his boys.

"_Sasuke! Your eyes are red too, like mine!" Naruto exclaimed._

"_It's called the Sharingan, idiot," Sasuke replied, without heat and clearly pleased._

Kakashi cornered the boy one night, when he was busy gazing at his spinning Sharingan eyes in the river. Naruto was off hunting with Kakashi's ninken, uncaring of the missing company.

"Do you still want to kill 'that man', Sasuke-kun?" he asked, settling down next to the boy. Sasuke startled.

"I - of course. He took everything from me."

"Not everything," was Kakashi's quiet reminder. "You still have your mother. Some of the Uchiha clan. The Uchiha clan compound."

Sasuke's laugh was low and bitter. "He took what mattered, though. Our pride. Our reputation. Chichi-ue." Sasuke's voice cracked at the mention of his late father.

"Are those worth more than staying alive?"

"Why not?"

Instead of replying, Kakashi sighed, running a hand through his hair. It glinted bright silver in the moonlight, in stark contrast to Sasuke's black. "Have you ever wondered how Naruto-kun came to live in the forest?" he asked, watching for Sasuke's reaction to his non-sequitur.

"I - no. Does it matter?"

"Haven't you considered how weird it is that a boy your age would prefer the forest, instead of the village, no matter how much you entreat him? Or how he came to be in the forest at all?"

Sasuke hesitated. "I haven't," he admitted at last. "Why?"

Kakashi kept gazing at their reflections in the water, lost in thought. "Why?" he said. "No one knows. But one must wonder about his early childhood experiences, for him to reject the village to this day." A dragonfly alighted on the water, causing ripples that distorted their reflections for a moment.

"As shinobi, we must always look underneath the underneath," he said, repeating an oft-mentioned teaching for Sasuke's benefit. "Not everything can be taken at face value. Remember that, Sasuke-kun. It applies to your situation as well."

He couldn't and wouldn't reveal his details, suspicions, and regrets about Weasel, but he could perhaps encourage his loved ones to stop seeing him as a demon.

.

Ah, Kakashi's stilted way of dealing with stuff is such fun to write hahaha. As usual, thanks for all the reviews, follows, and favourites, and as always please read and review!


	12. Chapter 11

Sorry I haven't been responding to reviews lately, but I promise I read and cherish every single one of them and I'll get back to you when I have time, mkays! In the meantime, enjoy the next chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its characters.

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**Chapter 11**

Kakashi thought he had been discreet. He was quite sure Sasuke hadn't breathed a word about Naruto when he was in the village, for all that the boy had grown less afraid of him as time went by. Both boys had developed a strong bond, so he doubted Sasuke would rat his friend out, courage aside.

But it didn't change the fact that someone was watching them.

Naruto noticed the same, though to him it was just the unease of having another of the 'two-legs' nearby for prolonged periods of time. He still thought that people entered the forest in bursts of five days. Sasuke didn't notice a thing. That was to be expected, since he was a normal genin, and this shadow appeared to be at least jounin level. The fact that the shadow hadn't acted yet beyond constant surveillance was the only reason Kakashi hadn't done anything pre-emptive.

The problem was that he didn't know who was being watched. Was it Sasuke, the scion of the Uchiha clan and the only one able to use the Sharingan for a few more years? Was it himself, top jounin and ANBU? Or was it Naruto, whom only a few knew was still alive? He had no way of knowing, and it frustrated him.

It made him very paranoid to leave Naruto in the forest. He kept his debriefings with the Hokage brief, always returning at the soonest possibility, so he had no chance to meet any of his colleagues. On the rare moments that he had to take a mission - he'd been taking the bare minimum to stay on the active roster - he left his eight ninken behind, guarding Naruto. It was an expensive handicap, but he felt it was worth the cost.

He would have turned down the Hokage's premature summons if he dared, except that he didn't dare, because the scroll was marked 'Important'. He stared at the scroll, annoyed.

"Naruto-kun, I have to go see Hokage-sama for a bit. Will you be all right?" he asked at last. Naruto looked at him and shrugged. So Kakashi plucked Sasuke out of the forest with him, as per his instructions, and left for Konoha, leaving Sasuke to train with his clansmen while he headed to the Hokage's Tower. To his surprise, a large number of jounin were already there.

"YOSH, KAKASHI! IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE YOU'VE GRACED US WITH YOUR PRESENCE!"

Kakashi winced and turned. "Hello, Gai," he deadpanned, dismissing the spandex-clad shinobi. Gai didn't get the hint.

"I DEMAND A REMATCH! AND IF I FAIL, I WILL WALK 100 TIMES AROUND KONOHA - ON MY HANDS!" Gai flexed his biceps and posed, allowing light to ping blindingly off his teeth. Several jounin around them swore.

Yes, he hadn't missed Gai at all. Kakashi sighed.

"Ahem." The Hokage coughed at the head of the table. All jounin focused their attention on him at once.

"Hokage-sama," they saluted as one. The Hokage acknowledged them with a wave of his hand.

"I think you all know what this meeting is about," he said, nodding at his subordinates. Kakashi snuck a quick look at the calendar. What month was it now? "For those who don't know-" he just _knew _it was targeted at him "-the chuunin exams are coming up in two months, and it will be held in Konoha. You are gathered here today to nominate your genin for the chuunin exams, should you deem them ready."

He looked at all of them in turn. "As usual, we will let the sensei of the freshest genin to start the process. Yuuhi-jounin, Sarutobi-jounin, Hatake-jounin, please step forward."

A wave of murmurs swept through the group at the mention of Kakashi's name. Surprise seemed to flavour them, maybe because none had seen him coaching genin in Konoha. The Hokage coughed to regain their attention.

"Yuuhi-jounin, do you nominate your genin team for the chuunin exams?"

Kurenai raised a fist over her heart, her stance firm. "Hokage-sama. I, jounin Yuuhi Kurenai, hereby nominate Team 8, comprising Inuzuka Kiba, Hyuuga Hinata, and Aburame Shino for the chuunin exams."

"Good. Sarutobi-jounin?"

Asuma mimicked Kurenai. "I, jounin Sarutobi Asuma, hereby nominate Team 10, comprising Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru, and Akimichi Chouji for the chuunin exams."

"Good. Hatake-jounin?"

Kakashi shrugged, realising the weight of everyone's eyes on him. "I only have the one genin, Hokage-sama, so there needs to be two independent genin for him to be eligible at all."

"No, you only need one," a voice said from behind the Hokage. Shimura Danzo took a step away from the Hokage, so that he stood apart. Kakashi felt his blood run cold.

"Maa, I hardly think that genin can test as a pair, Shimura-sama," he replied. His eyes flickered toward the Hokage, who looked just as surprised. It was unplanned, then.

"You do need three," Danzo acknowledged. "But then again, you already have two."

No. _No_. "Only one genin is registered as my apprentice, Shimura-sama," Kakashi said, a touch desperately.

"But you have been training one more in the shinobi arts, and succeeding."

Cold rage roared in Kakashi's ears. Naruto, he had to be talking about Naruto - and he'd left him alone in the forest _with ROOT_-

"The fact remains that, even if we should believe that this student exists, he is not an Academy graduate and not registered as a genin," the Hokage interjected, stepping in for Kakashi's speechlessness. His only consolation was that the Hokage looked furious behind that curious mien.

"He is registered as our jinchuuriki though," Danzo said, confident of victory. "Is that not so, Hatake-jounin?"

Kakashi's jaws refused to unlock, lest he did something he regretted.

"Answer him, Hatake-jounin." Kakashi's eyes snapped to the Hokage in disbelief. The Hokage, who looked angry, resigned, and scheming all at once. It was the glimpse of the last one that unhinged his mouth enough to speak.

"Yes," he bit out, struggling to sound calm. A murmur of surprise rushed among the jounin in the room at his admission. So what if the cat was out of the bag? He'd still protect Naruto with his life.

After he captured and flayed the ROOT operative that had them under surveillance, of course.

Danzo's face twisted into a smile. "Good. As it turns out, I do happen to know of an independent genin who wishes to participate in the chuunin exams this time. His name is Sai. This rounds up your genin team nicely, don't you think?"

"Very, Shimura-sama," Kakashi said, and stepped back. The rest of the nominations passed in a blur, with Kakashi concocting and discarding scenarios that might help Naruto slip out unscathed. Run away with him? That would mean turning missing-nin, and the Hokage would never allow that. Point out his ineptitude in ninjutsu and genjutsu? Gai had a student who could only use taijutsu, so that was moot, too. He hardly realised when jounin filed past him at the end of the meeting, though he took notice when Danzo slipped out halfway through. All the Hokage's privacy seals flared to life the moment his door closed.

Kakashi waited for the roar of the Hokage's impressive chakra to subside. The old man pulled his chakra back inwards, tamping it down to the levels of an average jounin, and took a deep breath.

"How is Naruto?" he asked, voice hoarse with suppressed feelings. Kakashi managed a shrug.

"He's well. Growing strong. He noticed someone watching us a while ago, though I couldn't determine their target. I thought-" _I thought I had more time, but since when have I had enough time? Always, always too late._

The Hokage stayed silent. "I am sorry, Kakashi. It seems I have failed you."

"Don't be, Hokage-sama." He meant it, even though the reply was automatic. "What is your plan?"

The Hokage picked up a random sheet of paper and appeared to ponder it. He cleared a corner of his table, at the intersection of several patterned groovelines, and set the paper down.

Then Kakashi took an involuntary step back as the room burst into a phantasmagoria of colours, from reds, greens, blues, browns, yellows, purples, and blacks, all swirling in a pattern Kakashi recognised as active chakra. An unhappy frown tugged at the Hokage's mouth.

"It seems, Kakashi, that walls have ears."

Walls? Walls had become strangers to him, having spent months on end in the open forest. The only times he'd encounter walls were…in the Hokage's office.

He stared at the swirling colours with new-found appreciation.

_I will contact you later_, the Hokage's fingers flicked in ANBU code. _Go now._

Kakashi didn't need further prompting. He shunshined from the Hokage's office, propriety be damned, and leaped into a shunshin straight for the Forest of Death. He was there in three bounds, honing onto Naruto's location with desperate accuracy. He had to find him, hide him-

"Kakashi?" Kakashi whirled round. Naruto was crouched on a bough, looking worried but otherwise unharmed.

"Why aren't you tree-walking with Uchiha?" Kakashi asked.

"Huh? You told me not to. And you call him Sasuke-kun," Naruto said, confused. Kakashi's shoulders slumped in relief.

"Oh, Naruto," he sighed, pulling the boy close for a quick hug. "You're safe. You're safe."

"Of course I am, Kakashi." Naruto must find him so strange. "The bird is gone."

Kakashi threw his senses to the limit to verify Naruto's code. Sure enough, their watcher was gone, for now.

"Clever boy," he said, relaxing for the first time that day. "Come, there is something I must tell you."

Naruto listened to his story in silence. Kakashi hoped it was because he was considering it, and not because of incomprehension. Finally, he blinked and looked up at Kakashi.

"So I just have to fight?"

"You just need to stay safe," Kakashi corrected him. "I will try to protect you, and Hokage-sama will too, but you can never be too careful."

Naruto patted his hand. "Don't worry, Kakashi. I'll be okay."

_Of course I worry_, Kakashi thought. _Minato-sensei, was this how you felt when you took care of me? I'm so, so sorry for what I put you through._

For a moment, he imagined Minato-sensei there, reflected in that pair of too-wide blue eyes. Naruto was looking out for him instead, and that would not do.

"I'll go pick up Sasuke-kun and the new genin, hm? Let you get to know each other a bit before the exams."

"I already know Sasuke," Naruto said, looking uneasy.

"But not the new genin," Kakashi said. The boy's unease increased. "You can make friends, Naruto-kun. Remember how you did it with Sasuke-kun?"

"With a squirrel?" Kakashi laughed at the memory.

"Well, maybe not with a squirrel. But something like that," he said, ruffling Naruto's hair. "I'll be back soon. Before I go - kuchiyose no jutsu!"

Eight ninken appeared on the ground below, barking in joy.

"I won't leave you alone again," Kakashi vowed. Naruto grinned and nodded, already distracted. Kakashi set off for Konoha again, more reassured than before.

* * *

Kakashi had a problem. Sasuke he found and retrieved without much trouble, but that was all he could do, because he'd just realised that the only information he had about the new genin was his name. Kakashi had no idea what he looked like or where he lived. Sasuke grew broodier the longer he trailed after Kakashi, so Kakashi elected to drop him off back home and recollect him once he'd found Sai. Sasuke's house was dim in the late afternoon, oriented towards the morning sun.

"Sasuke-kun, you're back," a voice said from the kitchen. Sasuke fumbled for a light switch and flicked it on, revealing his mother, round with child, at the kitchen table. She smiled at them both.

"Good evening, Uchiha-san," Kakashi said, inclining his head. She returned the greeting and took a sip from her cup. Her movements were graceful, as befitting a late noble's wife, from the arc of her fingers to the careful bow of her lips. They almost distracted him from the pallor of her face. She set the cup back on its saucer with a soft click.

"Sasuke-kun, dinner's ready. It's a bit early, so why don't you wash up first?" she suggested. Sasuke glared, eyeing her distended stomach, and headed upstairs. Mikoto watched him go. She seemed to have forgotten Kakashi, so he took the liberty of looking around.

The Uchiha family home was austere but functional. Welcoming spaces were kept simple and bare, in typical clan fashion, with a sprinkle of intricate baubles that hinted at their former wealth. He could smell fresh washi paper and pine, and….

Kakashi eyed the cup in her hands. "You are unwell?" he murmured.

"I will do what I must, sensei," she said, just as quietly. She took another sip, grimacing. Kakashi accepted the non-answer and left.

The one who'd know Konoha's genin, he figured, was Umino Iruka, guardian and teacher of bratty kids. Kakashi had no idea how he did it, how he transitioned from life as a bloody professional ANBU to a hapless Academy instructor, but he'd done it. Kakashi was ready to throw in the towel with just one genin.

Umino's heart had always been larger than most.

On his way to the Academy, where he hoped to catch Umino, he realised he was being cornered. Kakashi kept watch from the corners of his eyes. This close to the administrative centre of Konoha, ninja were everywhere, with a low civilian mix. Genin, chuunin, tokujou and jounin went about their business around him.

Around him, also, were several individuals he recognised from that morning. They hemmed him in, forcing him to change trajectory with them. That ended when Gai pounced on him from behind and gave him a heart attack.

"KAKASHI, MY RIVAL! YOU MUST TELL US WHAT YOU'VE BEEN UP TO THESE FEW MONTHS! WE HAD NO IDEA YOU'VE BECOME A SENSEI!"

"Gai," Kakashi groaned, trying to slow his racing heart. "One of these days you're going to kill me for real, you know?"

Gai thumped his back, and Kakashi blinked. He stared at Gai, who gave him a thumb's up sign and flashed his teeth.

"MY RIVAL CAN'T DIE SO EASILY, KAKASHI! YOSH, WE MUST DINE NOW, AND YOU WILL TELL US ALL ABOUT YOUR CUTE LITTLE CHARGES!"

His shadows dropped all pretense of nonchalance, peeling away from the crowd. Kurenai, Asuma, and Genma approached him with smirks, Kurenai with proper deference.

"So that was why the old man asked you to stay behind that day, Kakashi," Asuma said, raising his hand in greeting. "Kurenai here and I thought we were the only ones with rookie genin this time round. Guess not."

"Seems so," Kakashi said. "Yuuhi-san, my belated congratulations on your promotion to jounin."

Kurenai blushed and dipped her head. "Thank you, Hatake-senpai. Who is your charge?"

It was on official record anyway, so…. "Uchiha Sasuke," he said.

"And when did you take charge of _him_?" Genma's eyes were predatory; as the late Yondaime's personal guard detail, Genma had, of course, been aware of Minato-sensei's relationship with Kushina-san, and their resultant son. He had been the one to accompany Kakashi through his initial sleuthing through the village for Naruto, two months too late. It was clear he wasn't referring to Sasuke. Kakashi nodded his apology at the tokujou for leaving him out of the loop.

"Maa, that would be telling," Kakashi said, for the benefit of everyone else.

"MY RIVAL IS AS HIP AS EVER!" Gai cried, tears streaming down his face. "COME, LET US EAT AND BASK IN THE GLORY OF OUR GENIN!"

"They haven't even signed the chuunin exam forms, you know?"

"Mine have," Kurenai admitted. "Yours, Asuma?" The jounin waved a negligent hand.

"I'll give it to them sometime. They have two more months, anyway."

"ALL MY DEAREST GENIN HAVE SIGNED UP TO BE CHUNNIN! YOSH, I'M SO PROUD!"

Kakashi sighed. It was going to be a long dinner.

* * *

Indeed, when Kakashi pried himself away from the celebrating group, tired from keeping two conversations running - one in words with everyone, and one in code with Genma - it was several hours later. The other shinobi kept their eyes averted from their finger movements at the table, as was polite. Kakashi wasn't too worried. He and Genma had several unique codes to refer to their mutual topics, so their gestures would have come off as half-gibberish, if anyone was watching.

He had so little information to show for it, too. None of them had heard of Sai, and it was too late to look for Umino. Kakashi decided to give up and retrieve Sasuke first then figure out Sai the next day. Naruto would have started hunting already, so there was no hurry to rejoin him.

A lithe figure was waiting for them at the pedestrian gate that led out to the forest. Kakashi slowed his walk as he chattered away with Sasuke, getting monosyllabic grunts for his troubles, while he assessed the new presence. It was a dark-haired boy, dressed like a girl in the way he bared his midriff, exposing toned abs. A katana was strapped to his back.

The boy turned to look at them as they neared the gate. "Hatake…Kakashi. Sensei?" he said, in a halting monotone. He had no facial expression whatsoever. Kakashi sighed. One wild child, one spoiled brat, and one robot. Fantastic.

"That's me," he said. "Are you Sai?"

"That is what I am called," the boy said. His eyes shifted towards Sasuke. "My book says it is polite to introduce ourselves at our first meeting. I am Sai, genin of Konohagakure. May I know who you are?"

"...Uchiha Sasuke."

"Hm." Sai was still expressionless. "My book says we should use nicknames to create a closer bond between friends.

"I think I will call you…duck-butt."

At Sasuke's snarl of fury, Kakashi sighed again and clamped a hand on the boy's shoulder. Sai just looked curious.

"Let's just go now," Kakashi suggested. "Sasuke-kun, behave. Sai-kun, we're about to head to our usual training ground, so follow me. And no more nicknames," he said as an afterthought.

"Strange. My book says it is a very effective tactic for friendship."

Nope, he wasn't going to think about it. He was swearing off sensei-hood after this batch for sure.

The three of them made a tense, awkward group, with Kakashi being the brightest conversationalist among them in a bid to make things work. He wasn't very successful. Between Sai's "my book says" replies and Sasuke's irritated grunts, he was making as much headway as a tortoise climbing a wall. He hoped Naruto's presence would smooth things over better.

Speaking of which, the boy must have detected their presence again, because he dropped down from a tree not long after their entry into the forest. He stuck close to Kakashi, eyes wide as he took note of the newcomer.

"Naruto-kun, this is Sai. Sai-kun, this is Uzumaki Naruto, your new teammate," Kakashi said. "Sai-kun, no nicknames please."

"Nice to meet you," Sai said. Naruto didn't reply, choosing instead to step further away and trudge along at the furthermost point from Sai. That happened to be right next to Kakashi.

"Kakashi," Naruto whispered, alarmed, eyes trained on the newcomer. "Kakashi, the bird is here."

Kakashi stared at Sai.

Oh, that was it. Kakashi had Things to Do, and it involved something physically, socially, and politically painful for his enemies.

He was going to repay Shimura Danzo in his own coin.

.

Yay, I managed a slightly longer chapter! I'll scrounge up some time to reply to your reviews, I promise. Sometime. As usual, thanks for all the reviews, follows, and favourites, and as always please read and review!


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